Bloodedge of Fairy Tail
by Storm Reaper VII
Summary: Requested by kaizero06. After waking up with his BlazBlue and right eye out of commission, Ragna finds himself in the magical kingdom of Fiore. With few options but to move forward, he heads off to make his own destiny and search for whatever work he can with a little more than a solid punch to get him through this bizarre new world...
1. Arrival in Fiore

Completely numb.

'...'

Dull pain to the head.

' _Mrrrruh… God… dammit…'_

 _Sharp_ pain to the head.

' _Gah! What hell?'_

An eye and arm that refused to move.

' _Seriously... this shit again?'_

An eye opens, a brick alleyway is revealed.

' _This… doesn't look familiar… at all.'_

A hand gripping the wall behind him, a surge of pain at the attempt to stand.

' _Come on… I can at least stand…_ '

The man brought to his feet, he glances to his right and sees bright light. His sense of sound and smell slowly returns, bringing echos of conversation and the smell of seawater.

' _There's the opening…'_

Foregoing the wall's support… forcing himself to stand on his own two feet… a step forward… a second… the will to _never give up_ driving him on…

' _Almost there… This'd be a lot tougher if I still had my… sword…_ '

An alien scene. Crowds of people where styles of clothing he'd never seen before, old fashioned wagons made of wood, wares that he'd never seen before in his life…

"Wh-where… Where the hell am I?!"

 _ **Episode 001: Arrival in Fiore**_

"Well… this is just my effing day," the man thought aloud, his good eye taking in the scenery around him with a narrowed glare. "Definitely not feelin' any Seither in the air, otherwise I wouldn't be stuck with a damn double handicap." The man hadn't gone far from the alleyway he'd awoken in and he certainly wasn't oblivious to the several gaze he'd his way, many of them looks of fear or concern. Glancing down, he saw that his favorite crimson red coat and black hamaka had looked like they still had all of the marks from the last round of fights he'd been in. To make matters all the more familiar, the right section of his jacket had fallen, leaving his right gauntleted arm exposed in full.

"Shit… I gotta get this thing repaired," he thought as he glanced the buildings. "Maybe I can find a tailor shop or something to…"

He paused as his open green eye landed on a small oddly shaped town with two words on the front; _Magic Shop_.

' _Magic… as in real magic? Not the Ars Magus that Nine created, honest to god magic?'_ he thought to himself thinking back. The man's hand went to his wallet, just remembering a key detail. _'...I'm broke… not that Platinum Dollars would do me any good here… probably…'_ Sighing to himself he headed to the door. _'Free to look at least…_ '

He slowly opened the door, giving him the first sense of this world's idea of the arcane… He wasn't immediately impressed; at first glance it looked entirely like any other store with bottles lined up on the shelves. There were crystals and fortune teller's ball further back, but their quality made them seem like cheap knock offs or knick-knacks instead of what he'd been expecting.

' _Not what I had in mind…_ 'he thought to himself before noticing the young lady at the counter talking the clown like shopkeeper. The lady herself was dressed in blue and white top and a deep blue mini skirt. Her hair was a bright blond which might've reminded him of someone he'd used to know… if not for her brown eyes and the _enormous_ difference in cleavage.

"What!?" she said with surprise to the old man, slamming her hands down on the desk. "You mean to tell me there's only one magic shop in this whole town?"

"'Fraid so," the old man told her. "The people around here are more fishin' folk than they are magic folk. I reckon most people in town don't even know how to use magic. I built this shop to sell to the wizards that happen to be passing through."

' _Must not be a high end shop then,_ ' the man thought to himself. _'That'd explain the cheap quality, and if this is a port town that means that I'm definitely not in the mage town Isayana… So where am I then?_ '

"Aw man, I can't believe I came all this way for nothing," the blond haired woman said with disappointment.

"Now, now, don't say that little lady," the old shopkeeper said digger behind his desk. "I have all the greatest goods, let me show you. This _Colors_ magic is popular, all the young girls really seem to like it. It lets you change the colors of your clothes, anytime you want."

The item in question was a small, pink tablet. The shopkeep did some fiddling with the dial on the front an arcane circle formed before him.

"Purple!" the said excitedly with a wave of his hand. Just like that, his clothes turned purple.

' _That doesn't look like Ars Magus or whatever the hell that witch was doing_ ,' the man thought to himself as the shopkeeper changed his clothes to green.

"I already have one of those, the blond woman waved off. "What I really want are some powerful gate keys."

' _Gate Keys?_ ' the man thought to himself. He then noticed the woman's complexion change to one of excitement as she looked at a small silver key.

"Oh wow! It's the little doggy!" she said excitedly.

"Hey, what the hell's a gate key anyways?"

The old man and young lady both gave a startled jump as they turned to face the man that had spoken; neither seemed to have been aware of his presence before now.

"Um… H-How long have you been standing there?" the woman asked nervously.

"Not long," he told her passively. "So what's a gate key do anyways?"

"Y-you've never heard of a _Celestial Wizard_?" she asked him. The man shook his head. "Well… they're a type of magic user that summons _Celestial Spirits_ to assist them with their powers."

"You must be new to Fiore; even in a port town like this people would know that much about magic; it's the basics of the basics," the old shopkeeper told him before noticing the state of his clothing. "Now that I look at you it seems that you've had a rough trip, where are you from?"

"...A church in the plains a long ways from here," the man told him, not tearing his gaze away from the key. "Hey, is it possible for you to show me one of these… _spirits_?"

"Uh… I don't think that's a good idea, summoning one of those creatures here could destroy my shop," the old shopkeeper said worriedly.

"Why don't I just summon the Little Doggy then?" the young woman said, apparently confident in her abilities. "I've been looking to pick up one of those keys for a while now anyways. Let me do it just so I can make sure the key works."

' _Almost seems like she wants to show off,_ ' the stranger said to himself before glancing to the shopkeeper. "That a problem for you old timer?"

"I...If she's going to be buy it I don't mind," he relented. The girl gave a giggle before grabbing the silver key from the box and making some room for her summoning. "But, you should know that spirit is rather weak."

"I know, but I've always wanted to keep one of them as a pet," she said before swiping the key. "Open! Gate of the _Little Doggy!_ " A bell's toll was heard as a massive circle of magic formed before her. Wisps of light circled the area before connecting and forming-

"A snowman… with legs? The hell?" the man muttered as he stared down at the thing with his green eye as it looked back at him. He wasn't sure if the thing was constantly shivering because it was scared of him or if it was usually like that. "I thought this thing was supposed to be a dog."

"That's just what it's called," the girl said as she grabbed the creature and brought it in for a hug. "Awwww! It's so cute!"

"Now now, don't get ahead of yourself," the shopkeeper told her. "You can play with it and form a contract all you want after you've paid for the key."

"Oh, right then," she conceded as she put the key on the desk. "You can go ahead and head back little guy." The creature gave a small nod before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"Where do they go when you're done with 'em anyways?" the enigma asked plainly.

"Back to the _Celestial Realm_ ," the woman told him, as if that explained everything. "So how much for the key?"

"Twenty-Thousand Jewels," the owner said, happy he'd be able to do business.

"...I'm sorry, how much was that?" the woman asked, her complexion seeming to darken.

"Twenty-Thousand Jewels," the old man repeated.

The silence was deafening, leaving the red coated stranger to raise an eyebrow (he could really on raise the one anyways). The girl smiled before before getting up on the shopkeepers desk and seductively putting her hand behind her head, leaving her full cleavage on display.

"Aw come on, how much is it really worth? Surely you can cut me a deal," the young blonde said innocently before winking.

The man in red facepalmed at the display. ' _How low can one person go?_ ' he thought to himself.

 _-Later-_

"Ugh! I can't believe he only knocked off a thousand jewel! That old geezer must be blind!" the blonde said as she angrily stomped away from the shop.

"Heh, count yourself lucky he didn't just throw you out of his store," the red coated stranger nettled with a snarky smirk. "If I were in the old man's shoes I'd have tacked on a couple thousand for screwing with me."

"Oh! Yeah! Real nice!" she shouted angrily. "And while we're at it why are following me around?!"

"Following you? I'm wandering around town aimlessly, you're the one that's following me," the man said… before glancing over his shoulder to the blonde behind him. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm the guy in front."

"Oh... right," she admitted with a hint of embarrassment, leaving the red coat to chuckle before he looked over the side of the bridge they were on.

"Eh? Looks like some sort of a crowd's forming down there… and it looks like all them are screaming fangirls for some reason."

"Screaming… fangirls?" the blonde woman asked as she looked over the side to get a look for herself.

'Is it really him?!" one girl squealed with excitement as she ran by the two.

"The famous _Salamander_?!" her friend said, equally excited.

" _Salamander?_ " the blond traveling with the mystery man repeated before her eyes turned bright. "As in the wizard who uses fire magic you can't even buy in stores!? Wow! ...He's in this dead end town?"

' _Fire magic that can't even be found in stores? Sound pretty impressive,_ ' the red coated man thought to himself before shrugging. "Might as well she what all the fuss is about, wanna check it out?"

"You bet! C'mon!" the blonde said as she ran off at full tilt leaving the man to follow.

 _-Down Below-_

' _You've got to be kidding me… A guy like him? Really?_ '

The reason why the redcoat was a so agitated was because this _Salamander_ reminded him of someone he used to know, but put a rather large emphasis on their bad sides. He had dark spiky hair and a constant smirk on his face as he did a few simple (stupid) poses that seemed to make to girls around him go completely wild. To add to the insult, he even wore a cloak that was all too similar to his friend's.

"I don't know why, but for some reason this guy looks like a bust," he muttered to himself before looking to his apparent companion. "Come on there's no need to-" He was caught off guard by how red in the face she was getting. ' _Is she really falling for this guy's act? There are even frickin' hearts in her eyes!_ '

"Oh, you ladies are all so sweet," _Salamander_ said with a charming voice, suddenly turning to the blonde. Her blush deepened and the hearts in her eyes actually grew.

' _Hearts in her- It's a damn love spell!_ ' the red coat thought as the blonde made her way towards the sleazy looking gentleman. His arm immediately shot out and grabbed her by the shoulder to halt her advancement.

"Wake the hell up!"  
"Igneel! It's me!"

A pink haired young man had managed to shove through the crowd of giggling fangirls, causing everyone to grow silent. The red coated man paused gave him a wayward glance before turning his attention to the blonde. The hearts in her eyes seemed to shatter, leading for her red faced complexion to immediately die down.

"You okay?" he asked gruffly.

"I… I think so," she said nervously before noticing his hand on her shoulder. "You can take your hand away now."

"Oh, s-sorry."

"Who the heck are you?" the pink haired traveller asked the apparent idol with great disappointment.

"Who am I!?" exclaimed _Salamander,_ the man's body to go rigid with surprise. He tried to downplay his shock by posing with another confident grin. "I'm _Salamander_ , surely you've heard of me before."

"If they'd heard of some jackass using love magic for attention I think that repulsive mug of yours would be on a bounty poster," the red coated man slandered, his green eye turning to a harsh glare. _Salamander_ returned the glare in full.

"Damn, what a waste of time," the pink haired traveller groaned before turning to walk away.

"You're so rude!"  
"How dare you say those wretched things about our _Salamander!_ "  
"Apologize to him before we rip you to shreds!"  
"I'll tear out your throat out if you say that again!"

These were the threats shouted by the several fangirls that tackled the two, beating them down in every painful way a guy could imagine.

"Seriously, what is it with these girls?" the pink haired traveler moaned from beneath a pile of clawing girls.

"Love magic and being a general pain in the ass," the white haired man muttered from beneath his own pile of lovestruck groupies.

"Now now, that's enough my lovelies, let them go," _Salamander_ said with a style that basically said that he owned these girls. He then grabbed out a board and maker and wrote down _Salamander_ , like he needed to try and make it cool while the piles of girls moved off the two at his request. "Here's an autograph for the both of you; why don't you let all of your friends know that you've met me and brag to them about it?"

"How's about I tell them what a massive prick you are? That sounds better to me," the red coat bit with continued ire.

"I don't want that thing. Throw it away or something," the pink haired youth said. Unsurprisingly, both were instantly _thrown_ into a garbage pile by the idol's angry fanclub.

"I believe I must go my ladies, I have business to attend to," _Salander_ said with his usual charm.

"You're leaving already!?" the girl's questioned with remorse all at once, making the love spell seem even further apparent.

"Yes, but as a show of my affection I'll let you see my infamous _Red Carpet_ spell!" A collection of strange pink energy formed beneath the man and sent him into the air where he hovered. The fan girls were going absolutely wild. "I'll be having a soiree on my yacht tonight! And you're all invited!" The man then soar off into the sky, soon disappearing from view.

"Who the heck was that guy?" the pink haired teen muttered as the fangirls continued to gossip amongst themselves about tonight's party.

"Some sonuvabitch that needs a punch to the dick, that's who," the silver haired one groaned with his usual vulgarities as he painfully stood. _'Damn girls, if they'd have torn me any harder my damn wounds would've reopened…'_ He then noticed the blonde girl from earlier smiling at them both. "What the hell are you so happy about?"

"Want to grab something to eat?" she offered.

"Aye!" came the sudden call of a blue cat from besides the pink haired man. Silver haired looked completely flabbergasted as he looked at the creature… before remembering he'd been raised by a talking cat that was simply larger.

"So… interested in lunch?" the blonde asked again. The silver haired man's stomach gave a low groan, so he conceded and gave a submitting nod.

 _-And then-_

' _Jeeze this guy can really put food away,_ ' the silver haired man thought to himself. The four had gotten a small booth in a nearby restaurant and the pink haired youth was scarfing food down by the plate with his cat. The silver haired man shook his head as he contently continued enjoying his food… as best he could with his non-dominant hand.

"My name's Lucy, it's nice to meet you," the blonde said as she tried to keep a straight face. "Natsu and Happy was it?"

"Aye!" Happy the Cat said as he and Natsu continued to stuff their faces.

"Jeeze, show a little tact would ya? You got people staring at us," the silver haired enigma groaned as he finally managed to get a few noodles of his tempura udon to his mouth.

"That reminds me, I never got your name," Lucy said as she looked to the man sitting beside her (thank God I can stop playing the adjective game).

"...Ragna," he finally said before taking a long drink from his glass. When finished, he smirked at Lucy. "There goes your _charm money._ "

"Shut it you, or do you want me to pay for your food with the money you obviously don't have!?" she retorted angrily. Being smarter than he looked, Ragna shrugged and resumed eating. "Speaking of charm, that's the kind of magic that guy just now was using. Hypnotism magic like that's supposed to be illegal, how'd he manage to find it?"

"Black Market maybe, it's the first thing that comes to mind," Ragna told her as he thought back to the creep. "His fire magic looked weak as ass though…"

"They probably wouldn't let him into a guild with magic like that," Natsu said as he began throwing tomato after tomato into his mouth.

"Aye," Happy agreed.

"A guild?" Ragna asked, looking towards Lucy for her knowledge.

"Oh, guilds are places where wizards come to together to share information, find work, stuff like that. You're not considered a full fledged wizard until you join one," she told them before her eyes seemed to sparkle. "But the guild that I really want to join is supposed to be really tough to get into! I always read about them in _Sorcerer's_ weekly and they're supposed to be the greatest in Fiore!"

Ragna cringed a little as Lucy continued to fangirl. He glanced towards Natsu and Happy, the two merely looking at each other with deep concern. "At any rate, why the hell are you two here. I heard you say something about some… Igneel back in the crowd."

"Yeah, we came to this town because we heard a rumor that a _Salamander_ would be coming here, but it just turned out to be some other mage," Natsu said with disappointment. "He didn't even look like a dragon, doubt he could breath fire like one."

"Yeah, probably not," Happy agreed as he continued biting into his fish.

"I don't get it, your friend Igneel looks like a dragon?" Lucy asked as Ragna sipped the broth of udon.

"He doesn't look like a dragon, he is one," Natsu told her, Lucy's gaze went completely blank.

"Dragon's aren't too common then I'm guessing," Ragna voiced aloud. Everyone continued to stay silent. "I'll take that as a yes. Seems kind of strange for one to be showing up in the middle of town then."

"Well…" Natsu began before he realized his mistake. "Point taken."

"Hey, at least you're willing to look as hard as you can to find the guy," Ragna said as Lucy got out of the booth. "Heading out?"

"Yeah, I'll leave money if you guys need to keep eating or anything," Lucy said as she began walking away and spoke to one of the girls working there. "Thanks so much and sorry about the mess."

"Um… miss?" the woman began looking behind Lucy. The blonde herself quickly turned her head with concern, her jaw hitting the floor at what she saw.

"THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD!" Natsu and Happy shouted while prostrate at her feet. If anything the stares that had been sent Lucy's way earlier were growing larger and larger in number each passing second.

"EVERYONE'S STARING! Look, you helped me out earlier so let's just call it even," Lucy said trying to calm the situation down.

"Well we owe you something…" Natsu said before his eyes lit up. "That's it!" He grabbed out the board with the poser _Salamander's_ signature on it "This is for you!"

"NO WAY!" Lucy shouted, not wanting to get anywhere near the thing.

"Well…" Ragna began as he stood from the booth himself. "In that case, mind if I take it?"

"Wait, _you_ want _that_?" Lucy asked with complete bewilderment.

"I… guess you can have it," Natsu said as he handed it over. "I mean it's not like it's going to do either of us any good."

"...Your loss," he told them both with an evil smirk as he headed out of the restaurant with the signature in under his arm. Natsu and Happy glanced to each other shrugged and headed back to their table to resume their meal.

"Okay, what's he doing now?" Lucy thought before she decided to see what was up. Exiting the establishment herself, she saw that Ragna hadn't gone far and was now surrounded by several girls.

"Yeah! That's right! A signature from the one and only _Salamander!_ You all spent your sweet time clawing my face earlier before he gave it to me, so you know that this is the real deal!" Lucy's face blanched as he saw all of the girls going gaga, all of them grabbing for the board with ferocity. "Now… do I hear 100!?"

"YOU'RE AUCTIONING IT OFF!?" the blonde screamed at him.

 _-And then what happened-_

"Heh, easy payday," Ragna said with a satisfied smirk as he looked at the wad of cash in his hand. "Looks like they were willing to pay a lot for that thing."

"You cheated a girl out thirty thousand jewels while she was under a love spell, that's just low," Lucy muttered in annoyance as she walked ahead of him.

"She had it coming; I still have her nail marks on the back of my neck," he muttered. "You're just jealous that I managed to get some quick cash…"

"...Maybe a little," Lucy admitted. "Now I know this time I'm the one in front of you, so mind telling me why you're deciding to follow me?"

"...It's cause of a bad feeling I've got," Ragna told her. "After what nearly happened with that _Salamander_ creep I get the feeling that you're a magnet for trouble and with my damned conscious I can't really let you go on your own… there are probably a lot of perverts like him that would want to take a beautiful girl like you by force."

" _B-Beautiful…_ " Lucy repeated, her face starting to grow red. "You think I'm beautiful?" ' _Maybe I underestimated Ragna, looks like he can really be a charmer when-'_

"Also I'm lost in this town without someone to guide me," he continued with _titanic_ bluntness.

' _There's no way,_ ' Lucy thought, her earlier consideration for Ragna dead as disco. What she didn't notice because she was so distracted by her thoughts was that she actually managed to trip over her own feet, send her bag and keychains flying. A omen of pure dread filled her eyes as she snatched her keychain out of the air, letting her bag fall to the ground and scatter its contents.

"Jeeze head in the clouds, much?" Ragna muttered as he knelt behind the pile to help with her things. "Got a lot of stuff in that bag of… eh?"

"What is it?" Lucy asked before her face paled. _'Oh man, did he manage to see that pair of lingerie that I bought!? I knew I should have packed it tighter away!'_

"Why the hell do you have a damn pin-up book in your bag!?" he demanded holding the magazine up so Lucy could see the picture of the bikini clad silver haired woman on the cover. "I mean to each their own, but you're into this!?"

"Th-that's not a pin-up magazine you moron!" she shouted, taking the magazine from his grasp. "It's _Sorcerer's Weekly_! That's the best known magazine in Fiore!"

"I can see why it draws a large audience," he muttered.

"I-It's more than just _photo shoots_!" she insisted, as if the way she titled them made the situation completely different. "It covers story about all the major events of the guilds! I always read it for the stories of-"

"Lucy…" Ragna began with a despondent complexion. "You had the centerfold pictures bookmarked…"

Knowing the blonde couldn't deny that accusation, she merely crossed her arms in a very irate manner. "And what's the problem with that? Mirajane is a lovely wizard and a member of the _Fairy Tail_ guild, why shouldn't I want to aspire to be like her?"

' _She wants to be photographed in revealing bikinis? Okay then…_ ' Ragna was having more trouble than usual figuring Lucy out, and given even his regular denseness around girls that was saying something. "So _Fairy Tail_ … they the guild you were going on about back in the restaurant?"

"Well yeah, I mean who else could I have been talking about?" she asked him before remembering a key detail about him. "Oh yeah, you're not from around here. Well _Fairy Tail's…_ a complicated group."

"I've heard it been called worse," said a sudden but familiar voice from behind them. Lucy immediately jumped behind Ragna in her shock as his scowl returned in full. "My apologies, I didn't mean to startle you."

"Liar, you've been stalking us and hoping for a chance to get the jump on us," Ragna bit back with annoyance."

"Get the jump on you?" _Salamander_ repeated with a gentlemanly chuckle. "You misunderstand my intentions, they're far from as devious as you try to put them."

"Says the guy using girls to fall for him using charm spells!" Lucy shouted at him. "That magic's one of the lowest trick you can pull, and all to gain popularity!"

"I wanted to get as many people to the party aboard my yacht as possible, I even took the time and effort to come find the young lady to give her a private invitation."

"You joking, you have got to be joking," Ragna said as his lip slowly curled into a snarl. "What the hell makes you think that-!?"

"Have you ever heard about the famous _Salamander_ of _Fairy Tail_ my dear?" the caped man asked, stopping Ragna's statement cold. "If you're looking to join I could try to put in a good word for you."

' _Damn it! He's_ -!' Ragna couldn't finish his thought as his new acquaintance made her way in front of him. "Lucy?"

"So I come to this party… And you can get me into the guild?" she demanded with a cold gaze.

"It's practically a certainty," _Salamander_ told her. "After all… Mirajane does need someone to work with…"

"Okay, I'm in," she told him instantly, leaving _Salamander_ 's smile to grow ever wider.

"Excellent, then I suppose-"

"Hold it," Ragna interrupted, his glare still present as it usually was. "If she's going to that party I'm going with her, end of story."

"Ragna!" Lucy shouted with ire as she tried to whisper so that only he could hear her. "This is a _once in a lifetime_ opportunity; I can't have you come and ruin it for me!"

"Now, now, that won't be a problem," _Salamander_ told her with another of his smiles. "If your bodyguard wishes to travel with you, then by all means let him come."

"Bodyguard?" Lucy repeated as Ragna stepped in front of her protectively.

"So long as we're clear on that," he told him.

"As the water we'll be sailing over," Salamander told him before examining his outfit. "We should probably find you something better to wear than those rags… On second thought perhaps they suit you just fine." Before either of them could protest, the wizard used his _Red Carpet_ spell and left the two in a hurry.

' _Rags eh?_ ' he thought as his lip curled once more, this time forming a haunting smirk. ' _You're about to get what's coming to you asshole, count on it_.'

"Don't," came Lucy's voice. "I know you can't stand the guy, I can't either, but I can't have you showing up at the party just to cause trouble."

"Don't worry, I won't say a word unless you tell me to," he promised her. "After all it's a great chance right?" The blonde was surprised with his readiness to comply, but nodding eagerly dragging by his good arm so that she could shop for a dress for tonight. ' _If I tell Lucy she can't go she'll just try and leave me behind. I might need to look out for her this way, but at least I'll get to the bottom of whatever that S.O.B.'s got planned…'_

- _And then-_

"Whew! That was probably the best meal we've had in quite a while, right Happy?" Natsu asked with a smirk as he leaned against a guard rail overlooking the town.

"Aye!" the little blue cat agreed as he sat on the guard railing looking out into the starlit sea. "Hey, isn't that ship out there the one that _Salamander_ is having his party on?"

"Glad we're not there," Natsu said with a groan. "Being on a boat with that poser would just make me twice as noxious…"

"Aye," Happy agreed, remembering Natsu's extreme motion sickness.

"Is that the ship that _Salamander_ is on?" one girl asked her two friends a short distance away.

"It has to be, look at the size of that thing!" one of her friends said.

"Hold on, who's _Salamander_?" the other friend questioned.

"You haven't heard of him? He's an awesome wizard with fire magic that can't be found anywhere else!"

"He's so good I've heard that he's even a top member of the _Fairy Tail_ guild!"

As the girls continued to gossip amongst themselves Natsu's expression darkened considerably. " _Fairy Tail…_ " he muttered through his clenched teeth, gritting them so hard that a drop of blood feel from his lips. "Damn boat…"

 _-On the boat-_

For as much as Ragna hated the _Salamander_ guy (whoever he was), he could at least admit that the party was decent. The ship was plenty large to host himself and all of the guests that were on board, many of which were beautiful young women… in fact it looked it looked like he was the only guy here besides the host.

' _At least it's easy to keep a distance from everyone_ ,' he thought to himself as followed Lucy while she got a good look of the dining area. "So… how'd you know where to find a dress like that on such short notice anyways?"

"Shopping for a dress like this comes easy to someone like me," Lucy told him with a confident smirk. "You think it's a good match for me?"

"...Doesn't really matter what I think does it? You just need to make sure _Salamander_ likes it," Ragna told her off. Seeing the glare she was giving him, he let out a sigh and tried that again. "You look nice."

"Good that you think so," Lucy told him with a flirty smile that Ragna smirked at despite himself. "Here he comes, try not to do anything that would upset him."

"I already told you I won't try anything…" ' _Yet._ '

"Ah, Lucy was it?" _Salamander_ said as he approached the two. Ragna couldn't help but notice all of the girls trying to retain their conversation, even while glaring daggers at the two of them. "Would you mind accompanying me? I have this lovely bottle of wine that I've always wanted to share with a beautiful lady."

"I'd love to," Lucy told him with a fake smile on her face. The red coated man was about to follow them, but with the elbow he received in the stomach from Lucy he knew he'd need to stay back for now.

' _Hope she'll be alright,_ ' Ragna thought before he looked at the buffet being offered. It was a decent spread and though he'd eaten earlier he was starving for some food.

"So that girl you were with… is she like your main squeeze?" one girl asked him, leaving Ragna to nearly choke on the very air he breathed. "Well is she?"

"NOTHING like that!" he shouted earning giggles from all around him as the girls drank their wine. ' _Great, looks like I'm going to be on display for a while… This sucks._ '

"Why then? You seem to be looking out for her like a lovestruck puppy," another said, her tone carrying a hint of mockery along with a suggestion of intoxication.

' _Damn, now I'm actually starting to miss the rabbit,_ ' Ragna thought to himself. "None of your business, I have my own reasons."

"Yeah, perverted reasons if you're looking out for a hussy like her," the woman said as she took a long sip from her wine glass, draining the beverage. "It's only because of her boobs that people pay any attention to her. Why couldn't _Salamander_ have noticed meeeeeeeee-!?"

Her drunken rant was cut short as she dropped her glass and hit the deck of the ship. She didn't appear to be moving. Before any of the other girls could grow panicked or scream out in fear they all started fallen to the floor leaving Ragna the only one still standing.

"You can come out now, I'm already well aware you were watching us," he said as his green eye scowled at the doors to side the ship. A collection of dirty chuckles was heard as a gang of brutes exited from the doors and started to surround Ragna and the fallen girls. "You had to drug the food to take out these chicks?"

"It helps keep their faces from being ruined, but the boss told us to mess yours up as much as we could before we throw you over the side," one told him as he cracked his knuckles and the rest of the men laughed. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

"Too bad, I was always the problem child back home; had a lot of trouble listening to others," Ragna told them with a cocky smirk.

"You damn idiot! This isn't close to all of us!" one man shouted. "This entire boat filled with almost a hundred of us! You can't even fight with the condition you're in!"

"Only a hundred? That sounds pretty dull," he muttered, turning his back to them as he looked at the food spread that he hadn't gotten to. "Damn, probably can't eat this if its got magic on it…"

One of the brutes had apparently had enough and charged Ragna from behind, ready to piledrive the cripple's heading into the table. But before he could be caught in the grab, Ragna's good arm shot out and grabbed one of the food trays and swung it violently behind him, causing all of the food to go flying off before it was smashed into the thug's face. The tray was left with a deep imprint of the victim as he fell back unconscious. Most of the other guards looked to their fallen ally before glaring back to the crippled man that stood before them.

"What was that about not being able to fight?" Ragna asked cockily as he dropped the tray to the ground with dull clatter _._ ' _Wonder how bad I can cut loose with just one arm?_ '

 _-Inside the Cabin-_

' _It's just about that time,' Salamander_ thought with confidence as he poured drinks for himself and his guest. "Do you mind if I make a small toast my dear?"

"That's fine with me," Lucy told him, trying to stay pleasent.

"Good, then here's to your beauty and future place in the great guild of _Fairy Tail_ ," he said before snapping his fingers. Droplets of liquid from the drinks he'd just poured floated into the air and slowly made their way towards a startled Lucy. "I want you to just relax, focus only the heavenly taste of each droplet."

"I…" Lucy started before scowling and slapping the droplets away. "I can't believe you! I came to this party because you said you could get me into _Fairy Tail_ ; I'm not about to get drugged by your sleep magic!"

"So you've figured out that little ploy out… my _dear_ ," _Salamander_ said before snapping his finger. A curtain was pulled back, reveal all manner of thugs, each of whom carried an unconscious woman over their arm. "Though I'm afraid you realize too late, sleep magic or not."

"Wh-what is this!?" Lucy demanded, as the men let out a dark chuckle.

"Just a roundup of all the beautiful ladies of the party scattered around the ship," he told her, an evil smirk growing. "And don't bother screaming out for that guard of yours. My men are already in the process of beating him into a bloody past for those harsh statements at me from earlier." Lucy glare at him was full on nothing but hatred. "My advice? Lose the attitude, it's a decent journey to Boscow and who knows what we could have time for?"

"B-Boscow!? But that's nowhere near _Fairy Tail!_ " Lucy shouted leaving _Salamander_ to give a sickening round of laughter.

"Maybe what they say about dumb blondes is true after all, you _still_ don't get it!" he mocked. "You're just like these girls here, about to become one of our slaves for a _very_ long time."

"Why you-!?" Lucy shouted as she reached into her dress to grab her gate keys. _Salamander_ proved the faster of the two and knocked them away with tendrils of his fire magic. _'Oh no!_ "

"The gate keys of a _Celestial Wizard_ ," he said with a smirk. "You're the only one that could use these keys… meaning that as of now they're worthless." With a malicious heart he tossed the keys out of the boat and into the endless ocean.

"You…" Lucy began through a pained face as tears fell down her face. "You're the worst wizard alive! You're taking advantage of others with magic and killing someone who was only trying to look out for me!"

As soon as she'd said that a massive crash was heard from the roof as a familiar pink haired youth fell through. She gasped as she recognized the figure as Natsu. The mysterious traveller had a look of unspeakable rage on his face… right before falling to the ground with motion sickness.

"That was... something," _Salamander_ said unwittingly. "Is he supposed to be your little hero?"

"Aye!" came an unexpected voice from above. Lucy hadn't been expecting to see happy here as well, nor was she expecting to see him with wings.

"A flying cat!?" _Salamander_ shouted incredulously, right before Happy grabbed Lucy with his tail and took off for the skies.

"Whoa!? Happy!" Lucy screamed as she was flown into the air.

"Those little… _PROMINENCE WIND!_ " _Salamander_ shouted as he created a magic circle before him that shot out several flaming projectiles, only to have them intercepted by a figure that leapt out of nowhere and destroyed them in an instant. "What the-!? YOU!?"

"Sorry I'm late to the party, I had a whole shipful of assholes to deal with," Ragna said as he landed on the ground before glancing to the fallen form of the traveler from his earlier encounter. "Natsu? When did you-?"

"Not long ago…" he muttered while he was sick on the ground from motion sickness. "Ugh… stupid boat…"

"Okay then…" he began with slight worry before turning to face the thugs before him. "Just sit back for a moment if you can't move; I'll take it from here."

"How…" _Salamander_ began, a deadly scowl creeping on his face. "How are you still alive!?"

"C'mon, if those thugs were all it would take to off me even without my arm, I'd have died long before now," Ranga told him with a demeaning smirk. "What's wrong? Is the great and powerful _Salamander_ about ready to piss himself?"

"Like there's a chance in hell of that!" he shouted before waving hands, not to use fire magic but to signal to his flunkies. "GET HIM!"

The smirk stayed on Ragna's face as the first man of the batch made their way towards him. With a simple uppercut using his left arm, the silver haired fighter sent the thug into the ceiling. The second man that charged him was met with a harsh roundhouse kick to the stomach and sent flying into the wall. A third thug attempted a bull rush, but he merely raised his left leg into the air bringing it down and causing the man to face plant into the floor. The fourth man in the charge only received a powerful punch to the diaphragm before falling to his knees.

"Any more flunkies that you want to throw at me or are ya actually going to grow a pair?" Ragna demanded smugly at _Salamander_. The wizard was starting to lose his nerve and Ragna had him right where he wanted him. "Well in that case-"

All at once the ship started to rumble, most of the standing thugs were knocked of the feet as the tremors grew.

"What the hell's going on!?" one of the shouted.

"There's some huge wave hitting us! We're going to hit the town!"

"Now what!?" Ragna muttered before grabbing Natsu under his good arm and struggling to stay standing. "Brace yourself!"

"If think I'm gonna be sick…" the pink haired traveller could only moan from his motion sickness.

"Throw up on me and I swear to god I'll drown you!"

When the wave had finally died down the boat was beached on the port town. Ragna had made his way up to the top of the ship in the chaos and was catching his breath after what had just happened.

"Damn, well at least that's done," he grumbled before spitting out some saltwater that had gotten in his mouth.

"Not just yet," Natsu said angrily as he rose to his feet, seeming to recover now that they'd stopped. "I've got a score to settle with that _Salamander_ …" The red coated man then saw Happy and Lucy approaching from the beach.

"Ragna! Natsu!" the blonde celestial mage called out to them. "You're okay!"

"...Do what you have to," he said ominously before jumping ship and landing next to Lucy. "You alright?"

"I'm fine," she told him before letting out a sigh of relief. "I was more worried about you. _Salamander_ said that he'd sent his goons out to kill you!"

"He did, but I'm not about to lose to trash like them," Ragna told her before glancing to the top of the ship. "Natsu looks like he wants to finish off this whole mess, let's see what he's got in store."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Lucy asked nervously.

"Aye! 'Cause Natsu's a wizard too!" Happy said merrily, chomping on a fish that had been beached during the huge wave.

"HE IS!?" Lucy exclaimed.

"Figures," Ragna muttered. "Something about that kid just didn't seem right to me."

"So you're saying that you're a member of _Fairy Tail?_ " Natsu addressed _Salamander_ from up above on the ship.

"Why do you care? Get him!" _Salamander_ shouted, ordering his lackeys forward once more. Natsu threw his coat in their faces, blinding them both before striking the them both away.

"My name is Natsu Dragneel! I'm a wizard of _Fairy Tail_ and I've never seen you before in my life!" he shouted, showing of the red insignia on his shoulder in full.

"You've got be kidding me!" Lucy shouted. "Natsu is in _Fairy Tail?_ "

"Now we're talking," Ragna said with strange excitement. "Let's have look at what real magic's like."

"That mark's the real deal!" one of the thugs shouted with worry. "He's a real wizard Bora!"

"You idiot! Don't tell them who I am!" the fake _Salamander_ shouted in annoyance.

"Bora the Prominence?" Happy voiced aloud. "I heard that he used to be in the _Titan Nose_ guild a while ago, but they kicked him out because of his behavior."

"I don't care who you are or what you're trying to pull!" Natsu shouted. "You use _Fairy Tail'_ s name in vain and I'm gonna put you in a world of hurt!"

"I've had enough of this!" Bora shouted as he parted his hands and a magic circle appeared before him. " _Prominence Typhoon!_ ' A burst of purple flames were sent out causing an explosion where Natsu had been standing.

"Natsu!" Lucy called out in fear. She grabbed her keychains and tried to decide what spirit she could summon to defeat Bora.

"Don't worry," Happy told her, a creepy smile seeming to form on his face. "Fire magic can't hurt Natsu."

"What?" Lucy asked before seeing Natsu was still fine… in fact- "HE'S EATING THE FIRE!?"

"Okay… I wasn't expecting that one," Ragna admitted as he watched the girls from the party run out the ship screaming. "Looks like the love spells been broken, 'bout damned time."

"Ew! Is this really the best fire you can cast? It's disgusting!" Natsu shouted. Bora and the rest of his men were understandably in awe as they watched. "But now… I've got a fire in my belly that's raging to get out!" He slammed his fists together and created another magic circle. " _ **FIRE DRAGON ROAR!**_ **"**

The burst of fire from Natsu completely obliterated the ship and left all of his men in a heap within the rubble. Many of them moaned in pain as their boss floated in the air over Natsu using his _Purple Carpet_ spell.

"I think it goes without saying," Ragna began as Natsu's form slowly emerged from the smoke. "But I'd say we've found the real _Salamander_." He then noticed Lucy was still staring in awe as his pink haired acquaintance continued to beat down Bora and destroy the town. "So Happy, how's Natsu do it?"

"It's an ancient spell, giving him the lungs, scales, and claws of dragon! It's called Dragon Slayer magic! Igneel was the one that taught it to him!"

"A dragon taught someone dragon slayer magic? That's a new one on me…" he admitted before seeing that Natsu had Bora on the ropes. "It's over…"

"I'm gonna cook you like a smoked fish!" Natsu threatened as he leapt into the air.

"You're gonna do what to me!?" Bora exclaimed with fright as his opponent soared forward.

" _ **FIRE DRAGON IRON FIST!**_ **"** Natsu shouted as his fist was covered in fire. He then smashed into Bora and sent him flying through the town, causing him crash into buildings until he smacked into a bell at the center of town and went still.

"Don't be silly Natsu! Everyone knows you smoke food with smoke, not fire!" Happy said, referring to Natsu's earlier threat.

"I think that's sort of beside the point now…" Ragna began with a glum expression.

"He… He overdid it! The city's a wreck!" Lucy exclaimed. Indeed the town was a destroyed mess, many of the buildings had become deformed due to the damage Natsu and Bora had inflicted in their fight.

"Damn it… I know that this is gonna get blamed on me," Ragna moaned before he heard marching. "Is that-?"

"The army!?" Lucy finished before both were grabbed by Natsu as he fled from the scene. "Hey hold it!"

"Just keep running until we get back to the guild, alright!?" he shouted, causing Lucy's eyes to grow wide, Natsu turned his head and grinned at her. "You said you wanted to get into _Fairy Tail_ didn't you? ...So let's go!"

The blonde face was lit by a smile the easily went from ear to ear. "Alright!"

"Now wait a damned minute!" Ragna shouted before looking behind him and seeing the army chasing after them. It was either stay with them and hope they be lenient in their judgement and he could answer any questions he needed to about this new, alien land or follow the guy that had just toasted a city. "OH HELL!" He shouted following closely behind the two.

 _ **Author's Note: IMPORTANT**_

 _ **S: Hey everyone, it's Storm VII-**_

 _ **H: And Happy! Aye!**_

 _ **S: Yeah, I'm bringing the cat into this too… So anyways, that was my first chapter of Ragna in Fiore. What'd you think?**_

 _ **H: It almost sounded word for word from the anime in a couple of places…**_

 _ **S: I kinda needed to do that, but have no fear, next chapter will be something new I promise… or it could be if I do it…**_

 _ **H: You might not continue the story? How come?**_

 _ **S: I want to be sure enough readers like where this story is going before I decide to continue it. Now before I go on, let ME worry about the number of stories I'm doing. Things are working okay so far with my list system, so don't stress yourself over that detail.**_

 _ **H: Yeah so… how are you going to order this in the update?**_

 _ **S: Well I figure I'll wait until we get ten reviews in favor of continuing this story and then I'll post chapter two when that happens. After that I'll update it right behind 'A Reaper's Soul.'**_

 _ **H: What about pairings? How are you going to handle those? 'A Reaper's Awakening' is still receiving some backlash because of your recent decision.**_

 _ **S: That's… a bit tougher… Unless I see that enough people want a specific pairing or collection of pairings I'm going to leave him single or make an OC… That sounds fair? Right?**_

 _ **H: Aye! And for every person that reviews this, Storm says he'll give me a barrel of fish!**_

 _ **S: I NEVER SAID THAT!**_

 _ **H: Until next time everybody! Ciao!**_

 _ **S: Hey! That's my closing line!**_


	2. Arrival at the Guild

_**Episode 002: Arrival at the Guild**_

Looking at the fabled _Fairy Tail_ guild for the first time Ragna had expected to be struck with an immediate wave of awe or something, but he instead ended up feeling a slight twinge of disappointment. That wasn't to say that the place looked like a total dump, it just… it didn't look too different from the other buildings in town. The shape might've been a little weird and there were a banners hung outside, but honestly he felt that he would have completely missed this place if he didn't know what it really was.

' _Maybe there's something majestic about it, something that you need two eyes or a history of this place to see,_ ' he thought to himself as he turned towards Lucy, who's eyes were sparkling bright as she saw the place. '... _Or I might need to be a total Fairy Tail groupie…_ '

"I can't believe we're finally here!" Lucy said excitedly. "The whole town looked amazing, but the guild really puts it together." Again, Ragna had to question his view on the guild's design. "I… I can finally join," Lucy continued, nearly in tears.

"Hey c'mon, it's not that big of a deal," Natsu told her with a very laissez faire demeanor.

"Well it's obviously a big deal for her; so let's not ruin the moment," he told Natsu before sighing to himself. "Unfortunately though, it looks like this is where we part ways guys."

"Eh? You're leaving?" Lucy said, seeming to be disappointed that she had to say goodbye to Ragna even though she'd just met him yesterday (hey, when someone looks out for you to saves you from a love spell and slavers you tend to trust them quick). "Don't you want to join the guild?"

"Can't," he told her bluntly. "I might be a tough son of a bitch even when I'm like this, but I don't know any magic. 'Sides, I'm more of a drifter anyways; staying in one place just ain't my style."

"If you like being a drifter so much, why'd you follow us?" Happy questioned.

"It was either I follow you or I was stuck to deal with the army and hope I could explain the mess you caused," he reminded before turning to the disheartened blonde. "Hey, keep your chin up. You'll do fine here, I know it."

"Thanks," Lucy said trying to keep her bright smile up. "I'll do my best."

"You want to at least come inside?" Natsu questioned. "Come on, you came all the way here with us. You might as well see what the place looks like."

' _I guess there's no real reason for me to refuse_ ,' Ragna thought before shrugging. "Whatever."

Smiling, Natsu opened the doors to the guild and the group slowly piled inside. There were several people there with some bizarre features about them. People were talking, drinking, and laughing with one another; a great sense of comradery filled the room.

"We're back!" Natsu called out. Everyone around the guild gave him a friendly wave except for one buck toothed wizard who simply laughed.

"I heard you went all out and destroyed Hargeon Natsu," he mocked slight, right before getting pummeled by Natsu and sent flying into a nearby wall. Angrily he picked himself out of the rubble. "What was that for!?"

"That salamander info you gave us was completely bogus!" Natsu shouted getting ready for a fight. "Igneel wasn't there at all! It was just some poser!"

"Well I just passed along the info!" the victim shouted as the two then started to exchange blows, sending several wizards flying. The guild of Fairy Tail had a bar fight on its hands.

' _This… is not what I expected,_ ' Ragna thought as he gave a familiar anime style sweat drop. Turning to Lucy, he clearly saw that she was still smiling without a concern in the world. ' _She must still be starstruck, it's the only way._ '

"So Natsu finally came back did he!?" an angry challenger shouted. Ragna saw a dark haired teen stand from the table to engage in his own fight… wearing nothing but boxers.

"Eek!" Lucy screamed with a deep blush on her face as the challenger headed towards Natsu.

"Hey fire breath! Fight me!"

"Not before you put some clothes on Grey!" Natsu shouted as he sent another three people into a wall.

"Is-is it usually like this?" Lucy thought aloud.

"Aye!" came Happy's himself-go-lucky response.

"Seems like a damn pain in the ass," Ragna groaned. "...I need a drink."

"You and me both," said an alluring woman with brown hair and light skin sitting at a table a short distance from them. "The men here have absolutely no class." Which was ironic because she immediately started chugging her booze out of a massive barrel.

"On second thought, day drinking has its own problems," Ragna decided with a cast over expression.

"You're right, I wouldn't copy what Cana's doing if I were you," came yet another new voice as large silver haired man with a scar under his right eye said. "It take a real man to know when not to drink. Just like it takes a real man to know this bickering is pointless."

"...You don't say," Ragna awkwardly answered as the large newcomer headed over towards Natsu and Grey.

"Hey Natsu! Grey! If you want a fight then come take on a real man!"

"BUTT OUT, ELFMAN!" the two shouted in unison as they blasted him away unison strike from their fists.

"Well that didn't last very long," Ragna sighed as Lucy gawked at the scene before them while the brawl continued. "Is there _no one_ normal around here?"

"In the _Fairy Tail_ guild? I honestly, doubt it. Everyone besides me can't help but get into a fight the first chance they get." The tone that the voice had spoken in was one that Ragna unfortunately knew quite well. Cringing as he turned his head, his emerald green eye landed on a light haired young man with a girl on each arm, both of them clearly swooning over him. "Hi there, I'm Loki. Haven't see either of you around before."

' _Another ladies man, AMATERASU WHY!?'_ Ragna shouted internally right before Loki was stuck in the head by debris from the fighting.

"On second thought, I'll gladly step in… only if it's to protect the maidens fair," Loki said with a charming smile that Ragna was sick of seeing everywhere he went.

"Oh, he's so brave," one girl sighed.

"And such a gentleman," the other giggled.

"Yare yare daze," Ragna groaned as Lucy wrote something in one of her magazines. "Are you sure you want to join this guild? No offense, but I don't think your sanity would last an hour here."

"Excuse me, can I help either of you?" a lady asked from behind them. The Reaper turned to see a ravishing girl with long white hair elegantly carrying a tray of drinks in her hand.

"Oh. My. Gosh!" Lucy squealed right beside Ragna, causing him to grimace as she did so right into his ear. "It's THE Mirajane!"

"Miraja-?" he repeated before realizing. "Oh right, the one wearing the bikinis in that pinup book you have."

"Pinup book?" Mira repeated with innocent confusion.

"BE QUITE!" Lucy shouted as she kicked Ragna into a nearby pillar causing the Reaper yelled as he smacked into it face first. "I'm so sorry! Don't pay any attention to him, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Alright then," the model said, appearing to be mostly unfazed… at least she was before Elfman's ragdoll body slammed into her.

"Mirajane!" Lucy screamed as her idol appeared to go unconscious. "Don't die! You can't die! I just met youuuuuuuu!" In the background the battle was starting to get more chaotic as the fist fights were starting to become even more fierce, Cana started drinking even stronger alcohol, Loki started showing off for the girls, and Natsu for some reason stole Grey's underwear.

"Alright, that's it…" Ragna growled before tensing his body. He then roared his simple demand and slammed his fist down into the floor with enough force to make the entire guild rumble. **"SHUT UP!"**

All at once the fighting seemed to cease; the guild member's turned their gazes to the half paralyzed, silver haired, red coated man whom they'd never seen before in their lives that had just broken several floorboards. Feeling uncomfortable with the attention and looking for a way out, Ragna grabbed Lucy by the arm and brought her forward.

"Hey! What're you-!?"

"Who's in charge here!? This one's looking to join your guild! ...And Natsu, give the guy his trunks back, alright?" He carried a harsh glare, almost as if he was daring the guild to resume their fistfight. Not accepting the daring glare everyone's attention turned to Lucy while Natsu (begrudgingly) complied.

"Uh… Hi e-everyone, I-I'm Lucy," the blonde said nervously . Ragna rolled his good eye and poked her in the middle of the forehead. "Hey!"

"Loosen up a bit, eh? I don't think they're going to bite you," he said with a sigh. "Well? Is the guy in charge here or not?"

" _ **HE IS."**_ That monstrous voice was shortly followed as a massive foot slammed to the ground. Ragna and Lucy were immediately dwarfed by the shadowy giant that towered over the rest of the guild.

"Oh, I didn't think you were still here master," Mira (apparently quick to recover) said, causing Lucy to scream.

" _ **SO…. YOU'RE LOOKING TO JOIN FAIRY TAIL ARE YOU!?"**_ the giant demanded as it leaned towards the blonde.

"Y-yes sir…" a cowering Lucy admitted as she shivered with fright. "I-I'll prove to you that I'm worthy of _Fairy Tail!"_

"Oi, if you're going to try and put on a brave face…." an annoyed Ragna began before glancing behind him. "You can at least stop using me as a shield."

The giant then gave a massive roar of power flowed out of it. Lucy screamed while Ragna tried to brace himself should it attack… only to watch as the giant shrank to a rather miniature man, cartoonishly miniature at that.

"Some kind of size spell?" Ragna thought aloud. "Are you really the guild leader?"

"Of course he is!" Mira said with her usual beaming smile. "Allow me introduce the third guild leader of _Fairy Tail_ , Makarov."

' _Damn, I'm not getting a reading on this guy's power_ ,' Ragna thought as the tiny old man leapt to the second floor. ' _Is it because I lost control of my arm, or is it because this magic doesn't work like Ars Magus?_ '

"You clots are going to be the death of me," Makarov grumbled as he grabbed out a large pile of paper from the second floor. "Look at all of these complaints! Grey, you've been charged with stripping in public. Elfman, you verbally assaulted your client for saying that real men don't need muscles. Cana drank the shipment of beer she was supposed to escort. Loki had to go and flirt with his client's wife _again_. And Natsu… YOU'VE DESTROYED AN ENTIRE TOWN! And these are just the tip of the iceberg!"

' _Is this really what the Fairy Tail guilds known for?_ ' the Reaper thought as he saw the guild members with guilty looks upon their faces. ' _Jeeze, what a place. They must have to shovel out fees like-'_

"But to hell with 'em!" Makarov shouted as he lit the complaints on fire.

"SAY WHAT!?" Ragna shouted as the guild master tossed away the burning complaints (which were devoured by Natsu). "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!?"

"If we allow a few complaints to get in the way of our magic, who are we to call ourselves true wizards?! Magic doesn't exist because of some pesky set of rules, it exists by the creativity, passion, and spirit of its user! If we don't give it our all we can't achieve that which we strive for, our very dreams would be forever out of reach! Believe in yourself and your guildmates to strive forward! That's all you need… AS A _FAIRY TAIL_ WIZARD!"

" _FAIRY TAIL!"_ the guild shouted as a whole, many members raising an arm and pointing a single finger skyward. Lucy's eyes sparkled as she realized that this was the guild spirit that she had heard of. The connection between each member, the chaos caused on the mission; it was all she had dreamed it would be.

...Ragna was merely at a loss for words.

 _And then_

"Annnnnd that should do it," Mirajane happily told Lucy as she brought the stamp off of her hand revealing a _Fairy Tail_ marker on the back of the blonde's hand.

Lucy then gave a squeal of excitement as she ran off to show Natsu, leaving Ragna by the front desk.

"Is it really that easy to get in?" he asked Mira at the front.

"It's not supposed to that hard, we're not a completely exclusive guild," she replied. "Besides, she came in with a recommendation from Natsu and that's worth a lot."

"Any particular reason you're asking?" Makarov questioned.

"Well… when the three of us met, there was this Bora creep who kept telling everyone that he was the famous _Salamander_ of _Fairy Tail_. He even promised Lucy that he could get her into the guild if she went to his stupid party." Ragna grit his teeth at the memory. "Bastard turned out to be a damned slaver with a ship full of hired thugs."

"Is that right?" Makarov's voice had a heavy touch of suspicion in it. "I take it you helped in the fight?"

"I took out the goons no problem sure, but Bora was all Natsu's doing… which is why the town was blown to hell," he admitted with a sigh. "Probably shouldn't have let him do the fight on his own like he'd wanted."

"Master Makarov, has my dad come back yet?" a young voice questioned the head of the guild. Seeing that this was guild business, Ragna got out of the way and headed to find Lucy.

"So… this is goodbye then?" she asked as Natsu looked over the board. Ragna paid attention to what she was saying, but he couldn't help but overhear the kid that was begging to the guild master, something about his dad who hadn't come back.

"Yeah, I guess…" he said before smirking. "Take care of yourself alright? Life in this guild isn't gonna be any breeze, but I have a feeling you can take whatever comes your way."

"Well, if you think I can do it then I really have no reason to fail do I?" she asked right before she heard Makarov yelp in pain. Turning her head to the front desk she saw the guild master with a broken nose as the boy from earlier ran for the exit crying. "What just happened?"

"That boy…" Makarov groaned. "When will he learn that all he's endangering is his father's pride?"

"Pride?" Ragna repeated before hearing Natsu's slam his fist into the request board, cause nearby wizards to scold his behavior. "So… his dad's MIA?"

"Yeah, for a while now," Mira explained sadly from behind the front desk as the _Fire Dragon Slayer_ grabbed his supplies and left the guild.

"And Natsu's going off to find him," Makarov said with a sigh. "Of course he would, those two have more in common than they let on."

"What does that mean?" Lucy asked.

"It means that they've both lost someone," Mirajane explained. "Romeo's missing his father and Natsu doesn't want him to lose him like he lost Igneel."

"The dragon?" Ragna said with slight doubt. "...Were they close?"

"Yes, Igneel found Natsu when he was just a baby; he raised him, fed him, taught him… and then he vanished. Natsu tries not to show it, but everyday he gets just a little more hopeful that he'll be able to find him…"

"Damn," Ragna said simply before turning to Lucy. "Go follow 'im, he could a good friend now."

"...Yeah," she agreed with a sad smile before running off after the pink haired mage. "Thanks for everything Ragna! I swear we'll see each other again!"

"Count on it!" Ragna called after her as she left the guild. He gave one last long sigh. "Guess it's time for me to finally leave."

"You're not here to join the guild then?" Makarov questioned.

"I can't; you had a rousing speech an' all, but I don't know any magic. I'd probably be better off doing freelance work or living out in the woods."

"Hmm…" Makarov hummed to himself as he looked at the contents of his tankard. "Are you letting that stand in your way or are you simply trying to leave?"

"Come again?" the Reaper questioned, not sure what the old man was suggesting. The master didn't answer him immediately, first taking a long drink of his beer.

"...Even if you don't know magic, that doesn't mean you can't join this guild," he finally said.

"Wha-!? Master are you serious?" Elfman demanded. "No offense, but that seems like a pretty large exception to make for one person that we don't know anything about!"

"Perhaps, but he certainly seems able if he managed to assist Natsu," the elderly man began. "Besides, when was the last time someone besides me or _her_ was able to stop a brawl at the guild?"

' _Her?_ ' Ragna thought as he saw everyone's expression turn uncomfortably pale. ' _Looks like this place has its own resident demoness…_ '

"So my offer… Take one of the jobs on the board, I think there might be an easy local one or two on there. Prove that you can accomplish that much and you can join. We can help you get started with some basic lessons afterwards."

"I get it," Grey began as he got a grasp on Makarov's thinking. "And if he doesn't learn magic for whatever reason, he's strong enough to still head with other guild members as back up on their jobs."

"Grey, your clothes," Cana called him out again, causing Grey to gag as he realized he'd unintentionally stripped to his boxers again.

' _He wants me here for some reason, and stopping fights in the guild ain't the full story,_ ' Ragna thought to himself as he caught where Makarov's eyes were really pointed, his paralyzed right arm. ' _He knows something about my arm… or he knows that something's up with it at least. If I walk away here am I just admitting something or…?_ '

"Not to mention," the old man began once more. "It might be possible to find some way to heal your paralysis, given time." It was a tempting offer, one that made it all the more challenging for Ragna to get a proper understanding on the guild leader's true character.

"...Fine, I'll give it a shot," Ragna eventually relented as he headed back to the notice board. "I could use the money anyways."

"As good of a reason as any," Makarov agreed. "But I imagine that if you put your effort into your work you'll start to look forward to the jobs themselves more so than the rewards they offer. Cana, if you could make him a quick set of the basics. Two of five types of spells, just so he'll have something to get him through safely."

"Yeah, sure," the heavy drinker answered without conviction, yet she still pulled out a few blank cards and began writing on them. While she worked on that Ragna looked over the notice board for a job that he could take.

' _Let's see… there's a job to find a sacred sword that's offering a decent clump of cash, but I'll probably need a ton of magic for it. There's another one that's asking me to wipe out a group of thugs, but I don't know the city that's its being held. There's no telling what's out there right now, so I oughta stick close.'_

"Do you want some help?" he heard Mira offer from besides him. "I often set up the notice board, so I can help get you they type of mission that you're looking for."

"Yeah, that'd save me a headache," Ragna admitted with a nod. "I'm trying to find something that's local, doesn't take too much magic to do, and shouldn't take more than a day to take care of… points if there's some fighting to be done."

"Those types of jobs don't pay out that much money, but it should be alright if you're just doing it to prove yourself to Makarov," she told him with a pleasant smile as she looked over the board. "Oh, this one should be perfect. It's a gathering mission."

"Gathering? You mean I need to head into the wild and get find some basic odds and ends? Sounds easy enough, but why would they need a wizard for something like this?"

"Some items can be easier to find if you're a wizard, other times the patches that they use for gathering have monsters around them. This request looks like it's more of the latter, so you'll get into a fight or two like you wanted."

"Looks like we've got a winner then," Ragna agreed.

"Excellent, I'll write up a note from the guild for the client so they can understand why you don't have the official _Fairy Tail_ sigil on you," the young lady told him as she headed back to the front desk. While she got the paperwork settled, Cana headed over to Ragna with a few magic cards in her hand.

"Here," she said handing the majority of them to Ragna. "They're not strong, but they'll help get you started. Just act like you're channeling magic into the card and they'll take care of the rest of the incantation. Just channel and throw."

"Alright…" Ragna said as he looked over the cards. "I… I think I've got an idea how this works."

"Might as well play it safe," Cana told him. "Hey Grey, you mind?"

"Nah, it's not a problem," Grey said before putting his hands together and creating a blue magic circle. **"** _ **Ice Make: Wall!**_ **"** A thick wall of ice appeared between him and Ragna, causing the temperature to go down several degrees in the guild, Leaving the barrier in place, Grey got out from behind it.

"Alright, try out one of the _Fireball_ cards that I got for you," Cana told him. "Remember, just channel and throw. It's as basic as you can get."

' _I'd rather have a sword to swing,_ ' Ragna thought to himself. ' _Well, beggar's can't be choosers.'_ Pouring his power into one of the two cards with a flame on it, Ragna flung the card towards the ice wall and created a massive explosion of flames. When the fire faded, the ice wall was completely gone and the floor was badly charred. "Did I do it right?"

"You… your fireball was a bit… stronger than I was expecting," Cana told him with some surprise on her face. "And you've never used magic before?"

"...Beginner's luck," Ragna lied as he tried not be unnerved as Makarov continued to analyze him and his arm.

 _And then what happened_

"Looks like this is the place," Ragna noted as he stood in front of the shop.

Like the _Fairy Tail_ guild, the building didn't stand out much from any other building in the rest of the town. A simple two story brick and wood home that looked like it'd had its first floor remodeled to act as sort of a shop. The wooden sign outside showed two sword-crossed sewing needles placed on top of a piece of fabric while the needles were connected by a string tied around each of the loops. In the shop's right window there was a set of silk wear and dresses while the window left of the door showed of leathers.

' _Yeah, this is the clothes shop alright. At least is was easy finding the place,_ ' he though before turning the guild note over revealing the instruction on the back. ' _Would've taken me forever if Mirajane hadn't told me how to get here, plus she helped me find this job in the first place… Maybe Lucy could use her as a role model after all…'_

Pushing those thoughts out of his head for the moment, Ragna opened the door to the shop inside he saw a young woman sitting behind the desk looking bored out of her mind who didn't even look up at the sounds of a door ringing at the front. Her hair was a strange shade of violet and it was shaved down on the left side while long and spiky on the right. She was dressed in biker leather and was tapping a fingerless-gloved knuckle on the desk in a rhythmic order as she didn't bother to look up at Ragna.

"Welcome to the _Punk and Chic_ fashion salon," she said with boredom as if she were reading it from a card. "Our special sales for today are the buy a punk get a chic at half off and a free store tee with every outfit. If you try to leave without buying anything I get to wreak your face at least once."

' _No wonder they don't have any customers,_ ' Ragna thought as his good eye narrowed into a glare. "Yeah, well I'm here about the request."

"...Someone actually answered that job? You must've been born yesterd-" she couldn't answer as she finally looked up to face the new arrival. Ragna began to grow rather uncomfortable as she stared with wide gaping eyes at him. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?"

"I told you; I'm here for the job request," he explained yet again as she got out from behind the desk and marched towards him. "Hey, the hell's your deal?"

"My DEAL is that I've never seen someone be so uncaring towards a coat in their life!" she shouted as she more or less stole the jacket off of Ragna in one fluid motion. "The very craftsmanship on this is amazing! The material must've taken forever to create, the metal plates have been perfectly smithed, the belts the exact length… And you tear it up in a fight on the schoolyard!"

"...Schoolyard fight?" Ragna repeated as he though back to the titanic battle of how he got those marks on his jacket. ' _I doubt Susanoo Terumi would like to be called a schoolyard brat, but what the hell do I care about him?_ '

"Are you scaring away another customer?" a new voice said as a different girl came down from the shop's second floor. This girl had blonde hair nearly as bright as Lucy's, but had it done into curls. She was wearing an old styled silk ballroom dress. "I turn my back for one moment and you have to ruin any chance we get of making a sale!"

"At least I don't cut the price of everything in half just because someone asks me if they can get a special deal, softy!"

"That's called bartering! You're just too thick to know it!"

" _Softy!"_

" _Thick!"_

" _Softy!"_

" _Extra Thicc!"_

"ENOUGH!" Ragna shouted with rage, breaking up a fight for the second time that day. "I'm not a paying customer, I'm here because of the damn guild request!"

"Hold on, you're from _Fairy Tail?_ " the unnamed blond girl questioned. "Why have I never seen you in town until now?" Ragna handed her the letter which she quickly read over. "Oh, that explains it. Anyways, sorry about Beth's aggressive side, she's usually like that."

"Tch, I ain't apologizing," said the girl now known as Beth.

"I'd be shocked if you did. My name's Annalisa and I work with the leather in the shop."

"Wait, you work with the leather?" Ragna asked the girl in the silk dress with confusion. "That's…" ' _Don't question it Ragna, we don't need to know how strong migraine medicine is only our second day here._ ' "Nevermind, so where am I going and what am I looking for?"

"Just to the forest outside of town, I've got a map that'll lead you to the mushroom patch I need you to find. They've got red cap with pink dots over them. Hard to miss."

"Yeah, with colors like that," Ragna reluctantly agreed. "So what's guarding them?"

"Monsters called _Fungoides_ , they look like giant mushrooms and will try to suffocate you with a spray of their pollen to the face," Beth explained to him. "You… don't use fire magic do you?"

"I _can_ ," Ragna told her, remembering the card he'd used from earlier.

"Well whatever happens, don't use it. The pollen on these mushrooms is highly flammable and it'll ruin the entire partch. We only need about ten mushrooms to get us by, so try to get 'em and run out of there as fast as you can."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Ragna muttered. "Now give me my jacket back and I'll be on my way."

"Why, so you can finish tearing it to shreds?" Beth demanded, getting right in Ragna's face with a glare. "I'm not going to let a beautiful creation like this to be ruined beyond imagine!"

"And what about that hakama?" Annalisa as noted as she looked at Ragna's black bloodstained clothes. "That could also use a good washing… Tell you what, as a one time deal we'll repair both for you while you're on the job."

"Seriously!?" Beth shouted, annoying the Reaper even further with all of the screaming he was hearing. "Why the hell are we doing this for free!?"

"Free? Whoever said anything about that?" the leatherworker rhetorically asked with cruel smile on her face, unnerving Ragna to no end.

 _And then_

"Dammit, how the hell did I let them talk me into this?" Ragna grumbled as he made his way through the forest just outside of town. "Giving up my clothes for 'em to fix is bad enough, but wearing this through town is pushing it!"

While the outfit that Ragna was wearing wasn't clownish or unflattering in any sense of either adjective, the mere fact that he'd been coerced into wearing them was more than enough to piss him off. He wore a white tee hit with a black sketch of the shop's insignia on it. Which continued to allow his artificial arms to be shown off in full. His black pants had been traded for light tan cargo shorts with several pocket where he kept both his wallet and the cards that Cana had given him to get him through the mission. The oddest change, byfar had been his shoes. Since the material had been damaged in the fight the girls had still insisted on taking them from him for repairs they'd left him wearing a pair of _geta_ ; those wooden sandals you sometimes see samurai using.

"There's a reason that I never wear anything other than my coat; I'd look ridiculous in just about anything else. They better keep their word that they're just going to repair the coat, I'll charge them a fortune if they try to change or add anything on it," he promised as he looked at the map he'd been given. "According to this thing I don't have far to go… Heh, if I was doing this with Celica I'd be out here all week and I doubt I'd get anywhere near the patch."

As Ragna continued to travel the path he started to hear shuffling sounds coming from around the trees. Knowing full well that it could be a group of the _Fungoid_ creatures, Ragna reached inside his pocket for the cards.

' _Their pollen is supposed to be flammable, so that second fire cards out unless I want to burn this place to the ground_ ,' Ragna thought before taking a card out with a snowflake design on it. ' _This should be fine to use, just gotta make sure I don't use it to early._ ' More shuffling from a bush near him. Ragna watched it carefully as the vegetation slowly began to wither and die before revealing three Fungoides.

Their mushroom cap tops came up only to Ragna's waist and the body below was pale and bulbous. They had tiny arms, but long root-like fingers. The creatures tilted their heads and eyed Ragna with a sort of childish innocence.

' _These things are going to suffocate me? They don't look like they'd hurt a fly,_ ' Ragna thought to himself before glance to the bush that they drained nutrition from. ' _Then again just because something's innocent doesn't mean it's not deadly.'_

He didn't throw the card just yet, nor did he channel his energy to activate its effect. He instead decided to continue on his way and pay the creatures little mind. Apparently it was the correct decision, because the group then decided to head off in a different direction to search for more food. Knowing how certain creatures acted having experience in hunting, he figured that as long as he didn't attack any of them they wouldn't respond in kind… at least he hoped that was the case.

 _Meanwhile Back at the Fairy Tail Guild_

"Man, this isn't getting me anywhere…" a young blue haired mage sighed as she looked through the several tomes situated on the table around her. She was busily flipping through page after page at the book in her hands while her eye beneath her glasses darted left and right as she read its contents at high speeds. "No matches here either…"

"I take it progress is slow then?" Makarov asked as the tiny guild leader walked up beside her. "Sorry again for asking you to do this, Levy. It looks like I held you back for nothing."

"No I don't mind, I'm just sorry that I haven't found anything in these texts that could be Ragna's arm… you're sure it can be a magic item?"

"I honestly don't know," he admitted as he took a seat at the end of the table. "I only know that I didn't sense a thing from his arm. Not a piece of his life force, not a ounce of magic energy… yet it almost seemed organic, artificially so."

"...Did you really mean what you said to him, about healing his arm?" the blue haired girl asked him concern as she began scanning a different book.

"That's up to him, depending on his attitude he might have to live with an arm like that for the rest of his life… which begs the question, if it's so useless why has he kept it for so long?"

"Maybe he doesn't have a choice?" Levy suggested. "There could be some sort of curse on it?"

"If there was I'd have noticed," Makarov reminded with a sigh. "He's a mystery that one…"

"Master, if he's such a mystery then why'd you let him into the guild?" Mirajane asked as she approached the two. "You'd never let a threat to any of us into our guild, I know you well enough for that."

"It's to make sure I can keep a closer eye on him," the elderly man admitted. "He's an odd one alright and very irritable to boot, yet he arrived here with Natsu. That young boy seems to have taken an early liking to him and I've never known Natsu to be a poor judge of character. And that girl they arrived with, Lucy, she seems to have respect for him despite supposedly meeting the two of them yesterday… There's just too much we don't know."

"So you're going to be judging him from afar until you can come to a decision?" Levy guessed. "I guess that works, but what about having the guild help him learn magic? Did you mean that too?"

"Indeed," Makarov told her. "I'll start him off with the basic elemental spells and then I'll try to see if there's something more advanced that these old bones can't show him…"

"Eh? You're going to be teaching him yourself?" Mira asked with shock. "But that's almost unheard of from you!"

"Indeed, but then again we've never encountered a situation like this before either; learning spells will be a result of my teachings for sure, but with my select methods of teaching I can try to have it be a trial of his character down the road."

 _Meanwhile_

"ACHOO!" Ragna sneezed violently. "Damn, either the pollen's starting to get to me or someone's saying nasty things about me behind my back." He tried to shake the feeling off as he took another look at the map. "According to this thing I should be getting pretty damn close… ah, here we go."

Passing through the the treeline, Ragna finally came across the mushrooms he'd come to the forest to find. The was a giant gathering of patches full of several dozens of mushrooms, but from what he could tell there were only a few that matched what he was after for the job.

"Let's see…Red caps and pink dots," he thought aloud as he opened the small sack he'd brought with him. "Here's one." Reaching his arm out he picked the mushroom and tossed it into the bag. "Damn, I barely touched it and my hands completely covered in pollen… Hmm?" From within the pile a tiny little Fungoid popped out and stared at him with curious eyes. "...What're you looking at?"

The creature didn't respond immediately and the two just stared at each other in a long moment of silence. Then the creature slowly started to expand causing Ragna to take a step back in concern before it blew a thick cloud of pollen at him. Leaping back he managed to escape the cloud, but the creature leapt through the cover with it's long root like claws extended out. Going for the more head on approached, Ragna simply threw a strong punch and blasted the creature off into the forest.

"Annoying little shit…" the Reaper muttered to himself as he turned back to the rest of the patch, only to see dozens more of the tiny creatures. "Damn it, let's make this quick."

Randomly taking one of the cards out of his pocket, Ragna found that he'd pulled out a card with an insignia of an ocean wave on it. Channeling his magic into the weapon like he'd done earlier, Ragna threw the card and unleashed a torrent of water upon the mushroom men and sweeping several away. A few of the creatures jumped from the trees above him, but Ragna then threw a card with an insignia of a stormcloud on it, striking them with bolts of lightning and incapacitating them. Another mushroom, extended it root fingers, but Ragna caught them in his usable hand before roaring as he swung the creature like a ball and chain to send its allies flying.

A large ring of mushrooms surrounded him and all exhaled their suffocating pollen hoping to cage him in. Ragna then took a card with a tornado drawn on it and held his breath as he channeled magic into it. Throwing the card to the ground, a massive whirlwind emerged and dispelled the pollen with its force and sent the Fungoides stumbling back. The Reaper then rushed forward and delivered a powerful drop kick to one of the creatures and blasted it into a tree and causing a large branch to come loose. Grabbing said branch out of midair, Ragna smirked as he realized that it was just the right size for a makeshift sword.

"Better than nothing I guess," he said cockily before swinging it and sending several fungoides flying like baseballs. "Heh, now you're in for it…"

With Ragna's new weapon and his dark look glaring down at them, the Fungoide's earlier innocent expressions turned to ones of sheer fright.

 _Not Long Later- Punk and Chic_ fashion salon-

"Wonder how that idiot's is doing?" Beth sighed as she sat with her feet up on the front desk as she looked over soccer's weekly. "He's problem lost to all hell in the middle of the woods covered in pollen." The bell at the front rang once more, indicating they had another visitor. "Welcome to the _Punk and Chic_ fashion salon. Our special sales for today are the buy a punk get a chic at half off and a free store tee with every outfit. If you try to leave without buying anything I get to wreak your-Ugh!"

Beth gave a surprised grunt as she was smacked in the face by a leather sack. Gritting her teeth in annoyance she looked to the front entrance and saw Ragna entering the shop with a confident look on his face. He was lightly dusted in pollen, but it could have been far worse as his clothes weren't even slight torn... though his footwear was still killing him.

"You're back sooner than I thought you'd be," Annalisa said as she came down from the second floor.

"Yeah, well I don't like to be separated from my clothes for long…" Ragna told them.

"Yet you don't care if they're torn to shreds," Beth muttered as she looked into the bag Ragna had brought back. "Yep, that's all ten of them. Let me get your cash." Opening the register, the silk worker brought out the jewels for payment which Ragna pocketed. "These things might not look like much, but if you know how to work the fibers and their pollen you can really make your dresses go the extra mile."

"...You didn't put that stuff on my coat did you?" Ragna asked worriedly. "Mushroom's aren't my style."

"What? You're not a fun-g-" Much as Annalise wanted to finish her horrible pun, the harsh glare Ragna sent her way told her it wasn't worth it. "Your coat's in the changing room, just leave the clothes you have on in there."

Changing clothes with one arm wasn't easy for the _Reaper_ especially with the unique working of his coat, but he'd put it on enough times that he could do it blindfolded. After taking a few minutes he headed out and showed himself to the girls. Luckily, it seemed that they kept their word and there wasn't any obvious visible changes to his usual attire. The right half of his clothing was still left down since his limp arm wasn't able to keep it up.

"Oh, that's right I almost forget that we'd worked a little _extra_ magic on this," Annalisa said, only to see Ragna glaring at her once more. "Don't be such a worry-wort, I just added a little spell to the mix. Just channel you magic and say bind."

"Um… alright? _Bind_ ," Ragna said before his coat glowed only slight. The fabric seemed to waver for a bit before adjusting itself. His arm was then positioned that his sleeve was holding his elbow while his hand stuck out of his jacket's opening. It didn't look his coat would be undone as the magic held it firmly in place.

 _ **Author's Note: For reference, look at Auron from Final Fantasy X.**_

"Not bad…" Ragna had to commend. "This beats the hell out of leaving my arm limp and swinging around. Anyways, the old man said that I had to get a signed note from you saying that I did the job, just this time since I'm not actually part of the guild yet."

"I'll get one ready for you, just give me a second," Annalisa told him as him as she went behind the desk and began writing. "By the way, if your coat ever gets damaged again, come back here and let us take a look at it. I promise that I won't let Beth go feral like she did this time."

"Feral, huh?" Beth said with a groan. "But yeah, I wouldn't mind doing some more work on that thing if you think of it. Also, we've got some pretty good stuff in stock that I'm sure would look great on you, so stop by every now and again even if its just to see what we've got.".

"...Maybe I'll take you up on that after I've made some more cash," Ragna promised. "Right now my biggest worry is figuring out a place to crash, food for my stomach; the basics…"

"Well then I'd suggest you start taking some higher paying jobs, because it won't be possible to pay rent with this kind of money," Beth told him bluntly.

"Yeah, better get back. See ya ladies," Ragna then grabbed the note, left the shop, and headed back to _Fairy Tail_ with proof that he'd been successful on the job.

"So… think we'll be able to make copies of that jacket?" Beth asked with a smirk on her face.

"We might, but I don't know how happy he'd be if it sells well, he seems to favor both his jacket and its exclusivity to himself."

"Why do you think I want us to make it? This'll mess with him a bit," Beth said with a cocky laugh.

 _-And then-_

"Well we might not've gotten paid for it, but what did you think of your first job Lucy?" Natsu asked with a chuckle.

"I'm glad that I went," she told him with a bright smile. "I'm was nice to see that Romeo and his father managed to reunite. We did a good thing."

"Heh, now let's go back to the guild and grab something to eat to celebrate!"

"Aye!" Happy cheered.

' _They're quick to celebrate,'_ Lucy thought to herself, wondering what Ragna would have to say about their behavior. She was then disappointed as she remembered that the two had said their goodbyes before she'd left for her mission.

"Don't act so sad, we'll see him again," Natsu told her, like he'd known what she was thinking. "C'mon, Ragna told you to keep you chin up. Some food will put you in a better mood; Mirajane makes some of the best in town."

"...Alright, I could use a good warm meal after fighting that pervy ape in those mountains," she agreed.

"If anything I'd say your cow was the perverted one," Happy said as he thought back.

"Don't remind me," Lucy groaned as they made it to the front of the _Fairy Tail_ guild. Giving another cute shriek of excitement as she was reminded she'd been made a member, she threw open the doors eagerly. "We're back!"

"Welcome back both of you," Mira said with a bright smile as she continued to serve tables. "Looks like you managed to find Macao without a problem if your smiling faces are anything to go off of."

"Lucy got kidnapped by a Vulcan," Happy told her.

"It was really creepy," the blonde moaned. "But I'm glad that's over…"

"Well, I have some more good news for you," Mira told the three of them with an even brighter smile. The three were confused before Mira directed their attention to Makarov and a familiar red coated individual. Once they saw him the three's complexion almost rivaled Mira's own brightness.

"So… like this?" Ragna asked as he looked over the books that Makarov had given him he raised his hand and channeled a slight bit of his energy into it, creating a small red magic sigil and a small flame on his finger tips.

"Not a bad start, but you're a little off in your channeling," Makarov told him as he sat across from the Reaper. "Try altering your magic just slightly, I can guarantee you'll notice a significant difference."

"Alright," Ragna agreed before trying to channel once more. This time the fire magic extended all the way down to his palm and the fires blazed much harder. "You weren't kidding…" He then glanced his good eye upwards and saw his three friends from earlier still looking rather surprised. "Hey guys, how'd your job go?"

"It went well," Lucy told him as she began to grow hopeful. "Does… Does this mean you're here to stay?"

"Well…" Ragna began before smirking and channeling his magic. The right half of his face then began to glow a strong cobalt blue, surprising the three even more. Covering that side of his face as well as his paralyzed right eye was the glowing sigil of the _Fairy Tail_ guild. Getting a mark that showed itself when he put his magic into it had cost him a bit of cash, but it was worth it to him considering his clothes normally covered up so much of his body.

"You joined!" Lucy said excitedly. "I thought you said you weren't going to join because you didn't know any magic."

"Well, turns out that magic isn't as hard to learn as I thought… That or Makarov's a damn good teacher," he admitted before chuckling. "I think I've had enough drifting around for one lifetime; might as well try to see if I can make this crazy place my home."

"Sounds like a great idea!" Natsu said cockily. "Trust me, the four of us are going to be going on some awesome missions down the road!"

"Aye!" Happy chimed in.

' _This has been a weird day,_ ' Lucy thought to herself as she smiled. ' _But I've never been happier. All of the people here are so warm hearted and kind they even took Ragna in with open arms when he didn't know any magic of his own. They not as mysterious of exclusive as everyone thinks they are, but they're so strong and heartfelt that I know that I'm going to love it here!'_

"All right!" Natsu shouted with vigor. "Looks like it's time for us to celebrate!"

"Ragna's paying for everyone's food!" the blue cat announced leaving everyone in the guild to cheer.

"What the hell are you saying!? I barely got any cash on me!" Ragna shouted with rage.

"Come on, don't be so stingy," Natsu said with a laugh. "You'll just go into debt for a few days, no biggie!"

"I can't go into debt! I don't even have anywhere to stay!" Ragna exclaimed.

"Then just do a dine and dash! Aye!" Happy told him with a cheer smile as he immediately started chowing down on a fish.

"I WORK HERE!" Ragna shouted at the top of his lungs while everyone laughed and dined amongst their teams merrily at his own expense. ' _So much has changed… and yet I'm in the same damned place I was before,'_ he thought to himself with a sigh before heading over to the notice board. If he was going to survive paying for all the guild's food, he'd need to do at a few more jobs by the end of the day.

 _ **Author's Note: I don't own either series.**_

 _ **H: We need to get that barrier up now! Barricade all entrances! Reload all firearms! Arm the landmines! GUARD THE FISH!**_

 _ **S: ...Cat, as much as I'd hate to ask; What the HELL are you doing?**_

 _ **H: I'm making sure that I'm prepared for the ongoing shipping war, aye!**_

 _ **S: Shipping war? Let me take a look at the comments… Wow, 35 for only the first chapter. Looks like people have been waiting for this one. Hmm… Couple of shipping comments, some calling for Kagura, other's searching for someone else and a couple of harem requests… Doesn't seem like a war.**_

 _ **H: That's where you're wrong! Whatever girl Ragna gets paired with will mess with who they're supposed to be paired with! You destroy the sacred order of OTP's!**_

 _ **S: OTP's are sacred? I should be surprised, but I can't say I am. Anyways, that's the second chapter of this story. Sorry it took me so long, there was a lot of personal stuff I had to address, but I'm free now. Up next will be the LONG awaited 'A Reaper's Game' chapter and (spoilers) Ragna will be using the copy of Yukianesa that he found.**_

 _ **H: Aye, looks like I'm on break for a while.**_

 _ **S: Also, Happy… why did I get a charge on my credit card for THIRTY-FIVE barrels of fish!?**_

 _ **H: Remember our deal from last chapter?**_

 _ **S: That wasn't a deal! That was just you stating something that you wanted to happen… My credit score's going to hell now… Anyways guys, take care and I'll see you next week**_ _ **(hopefully)**_ _ **and I'll move this to the crossover section next Friday. Ciao!**_


	3. Arrival at the First Request

_**Episode 003: Arrival at the First Request**_

"So... this is Lucy's new place," Ragna said thoughtfully aloud as he stared at the building before him. "For the price she's paying for this, looks like she managed to make quite the steal."

It seemed rather large to him, having three whole floors to live in and being just off of the a small canal that ran through Fiore. There didn't appear to be any signs of the wood chipping or the paint fading, so it appeared to kept in good condition. As he approached the front door he saw that all of the windows were wiped clean and without stains, further cementing the place's appeal. Using his good arm to knock on the door, he stood patiently and waited for the owner to open the door.

"It's open!" came Natsu's voice from inside. Shrugging to himself, the Reaper opened the door and entered the premises. The inside of her house looked nice too, well maintained and no dust to be seen. Heading upstairs he saw Natsu and Happy waiting in... Lucy's bedroom.

"Uh, guys? Where's Lucy?" he questioned glancing at the pile of the chip crumbs and other snacks the two had created upon themselves.

"Taking a bath," Happy told him.

"She's taking a bath? When she's expecting company?" Ragna questioned starting to get a sinking feeling.

"Lucy's expecting company?" Natsu asked.

"You told me to meet you here!" Ragna shouted.

"Aye, and?" the tiny blue cat questioned.

"And-!" Ragna was about to respond before shaking his head and leaving down the stairs, heading out the front door, and waiting just outside. "It's not my problem," he muttered grumpily as he took a small book out of the inside of his coat and waited. He hadn't gotten too far into it when he heard the expected result.

"Get out of my room!" came Lucy's shout from upstairs as the entire house seemed to shake.

"Hmm, an impressive kick I'm guessing," Ragna said without looking up from his book.

"Come on, we were just trying to help you break the new place in," Natsu tried telling her.

"Yeah, well I'll try breaking your neck for doing this if you don't get out of here!" Lucy shouted from inside the house as the chaos continued.

"This place seems pretty lively," said one Gray Fullbuster as he walked in front of the house (fully clothed at least).

"With Natsu involved, I'm not exactly surprised," Ragna explained without looking up from the book in his hands. "Natsu invite you here without Lucy knowing about it?"

"Nah, just heading to the guild and saw you standing here," Grey told him before more scream and further shaking was heard from within the house. "...Shouldn't you go break that up?"

"And get her steamed at me? I'll hold off until I'm done with this chapter at least so I don't have to feel the full force," Ragna told him as he turned the page.

"Remind me never to take you along as backup," Grey told him only somewhat sarcastically as he walked off. "Later then."

"Hmph."

Eventually Ragna did head back inside Lucy's estate and managed to pry Natsu and Happy away for Lucy's rage long enough for her to get changed into some actual clothing. The four were now seated at a table, each with a piping hot mug of tea before them.

"Look, I'm not ready for guests right now, so drink your tea and go," Lucy told them rather moodily, especially to Natsu and Happy who sat across from her.

"That's no fun," Natsu told her before taking a long sip out of his tea.

"Your fault for being inconsiderate," Ragna told the two before waving his left hand and causing a magic circle to appear. "I at least brought something with me."

"Wait, that's-!" Natsu began with shock.

"Aye," Happy said with a dark expression.

Out from the magic circle appeared a small bottle of wine, which landed in soundly in Ragna's hand. The Reaper smirked at the object before presenting it to Lucy. "This is for you; it's not much, but I thought I'd at least get you a house warming gift."

"Aw, you didn't have to get me anything," Lucy said with a smile as she took the bottle. "But what was that magic you used? It didn't seem like any form I've ever seen before."

"It's called _Requip_ magic," Ragna told her. "I haven't gotten too far into learning this style, but supposedly it allows you store inanimate objects like weapons and armor and equip them later as needed when you use them. It's pretty useful, but..." The two then looked to Natsu and Happy seated before them, their heads slumped over with dark clouds over them as their eyes expressed a mix between dread and sorrow.

"What's with them?" Lucy asked.

"No clue, but that's the common response whenever I use it in the guild," Ragna told her with little idea himself. Shaking his head, he decided for Natsu and Happy's sake, he'd try and change the subject. "So how's your magic going?"

"Same old same old really," Lucy admitted. "Since I'm a celestial wizard the main way that I get fight is by using my _Celestial Spirits_. I don't have too many keys, but I have managed to get a few of the rare golden ones that are keys to the Zodiac."

"You mean like that pervy cow from a few days ago?" Happy asked.

"Pervy cow?" Ragna repeated with left eyebrow raised.

"Taros the Golden bull," Lucy told him with a sigh. "He's one of my most powerful, but yeah he's kind of a perv. Besides him thought I also have Aquarius the Mermaid, and Cancer the Crab."

"CRAB!" Natsu and Lucy shouted with droll emerging from their mouths and sparkles from their eyes.

"If they're her spirits, I don't think she's going to let you eat them," Ragna told them with a sigh, at least relieved that their cast over expression had fallen completely. "So that one that you picked up when we first me, that snowman thing? It's not a golden one is it?"

"No, it's not. That one's just a cute little guy that I want to keep around as a pet," Lucy told him before she realized. "Oh, I never got a contract linked with the little guy. You guys wants to see how a celestial wizard forms a contract?" No one seemed to object so Lucy grabbed out the key Ragna had seen her buy when they'd first met. " _OPEN GATE OF THE LITTLE DOGGY!_ " A bell tolled as Lucy's magical energy began to gather until it formed the small strange snowman creature that Ragna had seen Lucy form a while ago.

"All right, so you summoned the thing again," Ragna muttered as he crossed his arms. "Now what?"

"Now we form a contract," Lucy told him as she took out a notepad. The next few minutes consisted of Lucy asking the creature a series of questions which resulted in either a nod or a shake of its head. Natsu and Happy occasionally griped about how boring it was, but Ragna just knew it was best if he just sat and drank his tea. "Sorry for waiting, but as a _Celestial Wizard_ it's imperative that you make a firm contract and that you always follow up on your promises. Okay, now all I need to do is come up for a name for the little guy."

"Didn't know you could name them," Ragna muttered as he was silent for a pregnant moment as he thought something over. "What about Jack? Like the Jack Frost, the spirit of winter?"

"Kinda cheesy, isn't it?" Natsu whispered to Happy.

"That sounds like something an old man would give it," Happy whispered back.

"I'm not old, damn it!" Ragna shouted at the two, able to hear their conversation and very ticked off.

"Sorry Ragna, but I already came up with a name," Lucy said as he held her arms out for the creature to approach her. "Come here Plue!""

"Plue!?" Natsu and Happy shouted at once.

"Uh huh, isn't it like the cutest name ever?" Lucy asked with a smile.

"Whatever floats your boat I guess," Ragna said with a sigh.

"You're just upset that you didn't get to name it," Happy berated him.

"That not the... well... kinda," Ragna had to admit before he rose from the table. "Anyways, if that's all we're here for I'm gonna take off and try to see if I can grab a couple of jobs."

"Jobs huh?" Natsu said as he scratched his chin while Plue the snowman put on a strange sort of dance. "You've got that right Plue, I was thinking the same thing."

"You can understand him!?" Lucy shouted with surprise.

"Alright, I've made my decision!" the _Fire Dragon Slayer_ shouted without bothering to answer Lucy's question. "All of us are going to form a team!"

"Eh? A team?" Lucy asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's probably just a formal term for regular team ups in the guild," Ragna guessed.

"Yeah, so how about it; do you two want to join our team?" Natsu asked happily.

"You've got it! I promise I'll be a huge help!" Lucy accepted with energy. The two then performed a strange form of a high five mix, making Ragna curious if they'd done it before.

"Well, that works for now I guess," Ragna admitted. "No promises long term though."

"Fine by me, now let's get started on our first job," Natsu told them as he took out a piece of paper the job board and handed it to Lucy.

"Wow! Two-hundred thousand just to steal a book from someone?" Lucy said with excitement as she looked over the letter. "Let's see, the target is Duke Everlue who... IS A DIRTY OLD MAN LOOKING FOR A BLONDE MAID!?"

' _Don't tell me they planned this,'_ Ragna thought darkly as he looked to Natsu and Happy who appeared to be quiet pleased with themselves.

"We happen to know a blonde girl, don't we?" Natsu said, stating the obvious. "And you said that _Celestial Wizards_ honor their promises, did't you?"

"Aye, she did say that," Happy said mischievously. "Looks like we're-"

 _ **PPZZZAAAP!**_

"GAH!" the _Dragon Slayer_ and talking cat screamed in pain as both of the two were struck with a torrent of electricity, causing their skeletons to show briefly before they hit the floor. Nervously looking up as the lightning still lingered on them, they found themselves staring at Ragna with a few sparks of lightning emitting off his left hand and he was PISSED.

"I've got an idea," the _Grim Reaper_ said darkly as he towered over both of them. "How about you both tell me what the hell you were thinking so I can carve what idiots you were on your tombstones?!"

"C-C'mon, we can explain," Natsu told him fearfully. "We'll make sure that nothing happens to Lucy; that's why we're going with her and why we're bringing you along, to make sure she's safe."

"And you couldn't have just told me that without tricking her to join?" Ragna said, still obviously peeved. He then glanced to Lucy who was reading the job description to get the final call from her.

"I mean... it is two-hundred thousand," she admitted. "That's a pretty large amount of jewels, even after we split the money. I don't see why we shouldn't take this job."

"But still..." he was about to begin before sighing. "Alright fine, let's get going and get this over with."

 _And Then -The Open Road-_

"Uuuuuhhhh... This is the last time I get on a carriage," Natsu moaned.

"You say that every time," Happy told him.

"Well this time I mean it," the _Dragon Slayer_ responded.

"You always say that too," Happy told him again.

"Poor guy," Ragna muttered while he had his book open which he was continuing to read.

"Are you alright master? Can I get you something to make your trip smoother?" Lucy asked, trying to keep her voice as pleasant and cutesy as she could. "Maybe a pillow to rest on or a drink to calm you nerves?"

"Yare yare... Save it for the pervert that you have to convince; It's unnerving watching you do it here," Ragna told her as he tried to keep his head in his book.

"I'm just trying to get in character," Lucy told him. "Am I doing a bad job?"

"Honestly I can't say one way or the other, but... I dunno, it just feels weird seeing _you_ do it," the _Reaper_ admitted.

"Probably because you're way too protective of her," Natsu moaned from where he was seated.

"Aye, it's almost like he thinks he's her father or something," Happy added.

"Shut it..." Ragna growled. "First off, I'm way too young to have a daughter Lucy's age."

"You don't look like it," the cat told him.

"Damn brat," he muttered. "Second..." Ragna was about to continue, out of the corner of his eye he saw Lucy. The blonde now seemed to carry a deep sadness in her eyes, though it was obvious she was trying hard not to show. Ragna figured it might be better if he just left the subject of fathers there. "Changing subject, what's with Natsu? I saw him get seasick back when we first met, does this always happen to him?"

"Aye, Natsu's never been any good on moving vehicles," Happy told Ragna.

"For whatever reason though, he doesn't have a problem when Happy carries him though," Lucy added before she thought of an important question. "By the way Natsu, why did you want to form a team with me in it?"

"What do you mean why?" asked the motion-sick Natsu asked. "It's 'cause you seem like a nice person." Ragna was a little surprised, but chuckled while he continued reading. "I just wish I could figure out why you're so dang weird."

"Coming from a fire-eating, dragon raised, house intruding, motion-sick wizard with a talking blue cat for a companion, you have absolutely no room to talk about someone else being weird," the Reaper said harshly.

"Aw Master, you're so nice coming to my defense!" Lucy said in her best girlish maid voice.

"...I told you, save it for that Everlue guy," Ragna grumbled to her, bringing his book closer to his face so no one would be able to see his bright red blush.

 _And Then What Happened -Restaurant in Shirotsume-_

"Man, this meat's delicious!" Natsu shouted as he tore into his lunch with gusto.

"Mmm, I prefer the fish! Aye!" Happy shouted in response.

"Jeeze, and here I thought you had motion-sickness," Ragna muttered as he stirred his curry, mixing it with his brown rice. "Looks like your stomach recovered almost instantly at least."

"If anything motion-sickness only makes me hungrier!" Natsu laughed as he continued to chow down. "Still miffed that Lucy didn't join us."

"Don't talk with your mouth full Natsu; we're in public," Ragna scolded, earning a whimsical and snarky ' _okay dad_ ' from under the fire eater's breath. "She probably just had some stuff that she needed to take care of. She'll be along soon enough, so save some of the food for her."

"Aye, I'll be sure to keep the fatty parts," Happy told him. "Judging from her, that's the sort of thing she likes to eat."

"...Is your only point here to piss Lucy and I off?" Ragna decided to ask. Happy only merrily continued to bite into his fish. "No response huh? That about settles it."

"That about settles what?" came Lucy's voice. Ragna turned to address their only female member, but words wouldn't come out of his mouth. "Teehee, like what you see?" Lucy was dressed in a simple maid attire completed with a frilly white bonnet and apron. "Are you enjoying yourselves masters? Is there anything I can get for you," she asked cutely.

"She... she's actually wearing a maid's outfit," Natsu said with surprise.

"Did she really think she'd have to do it to complete the job," Happy whispered to him.

"Or did she really just want to dress up as a maid?" Natsu whispered back.

"I can hear both of you, you know?" Lucy told them, slightly miffed. "Well, at least I can get Ragna's opinion," she said as she turned only to see Ragna reading the book he had earlier. "Um, Ragna? What are you...?"

"I need to read my book," he told her trying once more to use it cover the blush on his face.

"But you're eating-"

"I NEED TO READ MY BOOK!" he repeated as a shout, praying that the book he was using as a shield was large enough.

 _Later -Contact's Residence-_

" _So he's the guy issuing out the job?"_ Ragna thought as he looked at the man sitting in front of the group. The man appearing to have hired them had grayed hair and an thin bush mustache. He was well dress and smiling pleasantly enough, as was his wife who was standing behind him. _'At least he doesn't appear to be the kind of ass that would stiff us the bill._ '

"Thanks for agreeing to take this job for me, and for coming this far to meet me in person," their employer told him. "My name is Kaby Melon, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Melon?" Happy exclaimed with drool emerging out the side of his mouth.

"Oh man, your name sounds tasty!" Natsu examined.

"Seriously guys? I'm sorry about these two, they both seem to have a mind for food, magic, and little else," Ragna told the employer.

"That's quite alright, I've been told that several times before," Kaby waved off pleasantly. Ragna raised an eyebrow (well, the only one he could currently) at the man's calm demeanor. Most people with this sort of cash would normally take that insult far more personally.

"We're just here to confirm the specifics of the job really," Lucy told him pleasantly. "According to the job we're supposed to steal a book, specified by you the client, from Duke Everlue's manor and return it to you for 200,000 Jewels. Am I right?"

"Almost, there were two recent changes Kaby informed them. "I've actually increased the reward to Two Million."

"What!?" Natsu, Happy, and Lucy shouted at once. "Two Million!?"

' _Still not as high as my bounty,_ ' Ragna thought to himself before thinking. ' _Wait, what's the conversion rate then? ...I guess if it can't buy a country, mine will still be larger one.'_

"Oh man, even after we split it, think of what we'll be able to get!" Natsu thought aloud. "Imagine the kind of food we could eat~!"

"Fish~!" Happy shouted happily.

"You two could dream a little bigger than food you know," Lucy decided to tell them. "But if that's only the first change, what's the second one?"

"The second change is... I want the book destroyed, not returned," Kaby instructed.

"Destroyed?" Ragna questioned. "What brought about that change?"

"...I'm afraid that is something rather personal," Kaby told them. "Regardless, this should be good news for your group, rumor has it that _Fairy Tail_ has a somewhat... flashy reputation."

"You're not wrong..." the Reaper muttered. "Well, I guess that's not any of our business anyways. What's the name of the book we're supposed to find?" Ragna could see the client was hesitating for some reason, something about not wanting to tell them even the name. "Look, we need a name or we can't get the job done."

"... _Daybreak..._ " Kaby finally chocked out. "Promise me that you'll complete this job, no matter what."

"No sweat," Natsu told him. "If all we have to do is burn the thing to ashes then there's no way we could screw this up."

"Natsu! I'm not going to jail just for you arsooooooooooooooon!" Lucy screamed as she was dragged off by Natsu and Happy.

"LET'S GO GET RICH!" the dragon slayer shouted at the top of his lungs.

"AYE!"

"PUT ME DOWN YOU IDIOT!"

"I better follow 'em," Ragna said with a sigh as he rose from the couch. "We'll be back soon enough with the ashes."

"I look forward to it," Kaby said to him, trying to keep a pleasant smile upon his face. As the Reaper exited and closed the door behind him, he stayed near the wall for the briefest of moments to listen in. " _Daybreak..._ Its filth and evil must be burned away..."

' _That's a lot of aggression to have over some book,_ ' Ragna thought to himself as he continued heading off after the others.

 _And then -The Everlue Manor-_

"So... this is the place," Ragna said as he observed the outside of the manor. "Any clue exactly why this guy has so much money?"

"Not really, but I'd say that he's had at least a few shady dealings," Happy told. "The truth is not many people have even managed to get close to Duke Everlue in the first place. Half of the town probably doesn't know what he even looks like."

"Given the job, I'd guess he probably gets rid of whoever he doesn't like," Ragna said as he watched Lucy approach the front gate in her maid uniform. "Damn, I don't like this." Using his left arm he reached for his sword... only to remember there was nothing there.

"You're doing that again," Natsu told him. "You're acting like you've got a weapon on you."

"Yeah, I lost my sword not too long back. I've been managing without it, but..." Ragna said as he briefly thought back to the battle that had brought him to this strange new world; the titanic blows he'd had to endure, the countless near shaves with his demise, and the goodbyes he'd had to say and how he'd convinced himself that it was on his terms. "...Old habits die hard I guess."

"Are you sure you're not an old man?" Happy asked, bringing the Reaper back to the present with a harsh scowl on his face. "Lucy's at the front gate."

Down below at the gate Lucy took a good long look at the place before taking a deep breath. "Hello!? I'm here for the maid position! I heard that you were looking for blonde girl!" No response. "Funny, I was sure this was the right place. Is there something you're supposed to ring or-"

All at once a giant shadow covered her leaving her to jump back and scream at the last instant as a huge... something, crashed into the ground before her. Once the smoke cleared, Lucy saw a giant woman with pink hair in a maid out fit. Woman was sort of a generous term though, this thing looked like giant ape had only evolved halfway to a human.

"You're here for the maid job?" the... creature asked in a demanding and barbaric voice.

"Y-Yes!" Lucy told her. "I swear that I'll do a good job! I have a lot of experience and-!"

"Boyoyo. A lot of experience you say? Do tell," came a creepy voice. The ground itself seemed to open as Duke Everlue leaped out. When Lucy had seen the job illustration of the man, she'd hoped that it had been drawn as a caricature by a spiteful artist... turns out there would have been no need for a caricature. The Duke was a strangely shaped man whose mustache seemed to actually be abnormally long nose hairs. He wore a black tuxedo which was normal enough, the it clashed with the clump of brown hair atop his head.

' _C-creepy,_ ' Lucy thought to herself as Everlue looked her over with strange yet observant eyes. ' _All I need to do is keep a smile on my face. I just can't let this guy's pervy nature get to-'_

"No good! Get out of here ugly!" Everlue said as he blew her off.

"EXCUSE ME!?" Lucy shouted.

"...That's not supposed to happen," Ragna commented as he watched from his look out.

"You're ugly, unappealing, garbage," Everlue informed, each insult hitting Lucy like an awful punch to the stomach. "You should look more like _my_ maids."

"Your maids-" Lucy began as the Duke's maids suddenly appeared at to his side from out of the ground. The woman were even more cartoonist than Everlue, their heads and bodies had such strange shapes and proportions that they looked like they were the result of an abstract artist. Their noses and mouths were bent strange directions and it looked like a few of them had whiskers on their faces.

"Yeah, get out of here ugly girl," one of the maids insulted.

"The master deserves only the best, not an awful girl like you," another told her.

"Master's the best," a third said.

"Now get out of here, you make us sick to our stomachs," the fourth and final one said.

"Boyoyo!" Everlue laughed perversely, apparently reaching nirvana while he was surrounded by his maids.

 _And then_

"Th-that jerk," Lucy cried in the woods against a tree, her pride apparently having been broken to bits.

"Your useless, you know that?" Natsu chided as he came in with Happy.

"Don't mock me!" Lucy yelled at him as she continued to cry. "I can't believe someone called me ugly... And after all that time I spent watching my weight and staying in shape some perv actually goes and calls me ugly..."

"...Uh, shouldn't you just take this as a good thing?" Ragna asked aloud, causing Lucy's crying to lighten for a moment.

"Wh-what are you talking about?" she demanded as tears continued to fall.

"Well..." Ragna began with a sigh. "You saw the kind of maids that creep had right? How they were... pretty hard on the eyes, putting it lightly."

"Y-yeah, I was the closest to them," she told him, tears still in her eyes.

"Lucy... If he thinks that you're ugly it means he sees you as the opposite of whatever the hell they were," Ragna patiently explained.

"Then that means I'm-!" Lucy began as her eyes cleared of tears and began to sparkle. "STILL BEAUTIFUL!" Her smile at Ragna was positively glowing. "Thank you Ragna, I hadn't thought about it that way. You're the best!"

' _You would have if realized that yourself if you'd taken two seconds to consider it,_ ' Ragna thought exasperatedly as he let out a sigh. "Everlue's bizarre tastes aside, we still have to get that book. So, now for our plan B."

"Alright," Natsu said as his fists glowed with fire. "Time to toast the place!"

"Aye!" Happy shouted, strangely now dressed in Rambo-esque gear.

"Calm down, we're not going to go inside guns blazing," the Reaper explained. "This will be a stealth mission from here on out. We go in, we find the book and destroy it, we leave. No detours of any kind. Got it?"

"...So no hiding his slippers somewhere or switch his shampoo out for hair gel?" Lucy asked. Ragna wasn't sure whether to be relieved or incredibly disappointed that Lucy's ideas of revenge were so tame. "But if this is a stealth job, then we'll have to sneak around like ninjas, won't we?"

"Ninja!" Natsu and Happy shouted at once, immediately giving Ragna yet another sinking feeling.

 _Later_

"Alright, we're in. Nin-Nin!" Natsu said, his voice slightly muffled by his scarf that he was using as a ninja mask. The group had infiltrated the manor by Natsu melting a hole in one of the glass windows.

"We must find the book with great stealth. Nin-Nin!" Happy agreed, that cat also having covered his face in a cloth for a makeshift mask.

"Knock it off, the both of you," Ragna growled at them. "You two are the worst..." He paused at his statement as he thought back to a rather colorful figure from his past.

' _GRIM REAPER! IN THE NAME OF LOVE AND JUSTICE I, BANG SHISHIGAMI, SHALL BE THE ONE TO BRING YOUR REIGN OF TYRANNY TO AN END!'_

"...Scratch that, the lot of you are the _second_ worst ninjas I've ever seen," Ragna informed them.

"Only second worst? Really?" Lucy asked him with surprise. "You've actually met a worse ninja than them?"

"Trust me, I've seen some shit," the Reaper explained before once more addressing Happy and Natsu. "And if you make another old man comment, I swear to god I'll... Wait..."

"Intruders!" came a sudden shout as the large gorilla of a maid suddenly blasted herself out of the ground. Lucy screamed with fright while the maid barreled towards them to crush them. As Natsu was covered in shadow, the dragon slayer obliviously raised his head to- "GAH!" the maid screamed as she was blasted into a wall, crashing through and creating a massive cloud of dust.

"Annoying," Ragna muttered as the hand he'd used to punch his opponent through the wall actually had some smoke on it. Hearing a small crackle he noticed that the other maids had burst out from out of the ground.

"They beat Virgo!"

"Get them!" they shouted with their weapons ready.

"NINJA POWER!" Natsu shouted as he blasted them all away with a fist glowing with fire.

"So much for a stealthy approach," Ragna muttered.

"I told ya we should've just burned this place down from the beginning," Natsu reminded.

"That's still arson," Lucy told him. "But I have to admit the more we see of this crazy Duke, the more we see that he's got some pretty creepy earth powers."

"Look, let's just grab find the library before something else happens," Ragna told them as he began checking the doors. "Found it."

"Well, we found the room easily enough, now we just need to find _Daybreak_ ," Lucy told them.

"So we need to search, and that's gonna take awhile," Natsu groaned.

"Aye," Happy glumly agreed.

"Look, the sooner we get started, the sooner we're done," Ragna told them gruffly before and odd feeling covered his body. "Hold on a minute... Is it this one?" Pulling the book out he managed to find... "Holy crap, _Daybreak_. _.."_

"How'd you get it on the first try?" Natsu asked looking surpsied.

"I don't know, I just got this weird feeling and I managed to grab it..." the Reaper told him as he held the book. "Wait, could I have sensed some sort of magic inside this thing?"

"A magic book, some of those can be really rare!" Lucy told him as she took a look at the book herself. "No way! This was written by Kemu Zaleon!? I've read all of his books and I've never heard of this one!"

"Well, we can still burn it can't we?" Natsu asked with a smile as his hand glowed with fire.

"Wait just a moment, was the Kemu guy a Wizard?" Lucy nodded as Ragna's question. "And if what I sensed was really magic... there's something bigger at play here. I don't think we should destroy this just yet."

"Boyoyo! You won't be burning that book at all now," echoed Everlue's laughter. Once more the strange man sprouted out of the ground with a haughty smile. "I knew you'd be back; Wizards have been trying to rob me for some time now, I could never find out what they were looking for... But it's that damned book of all things really?"

' _There's still a secret here_ , _and whatever it is we can't let Everlue get to it,'_ Ragna thought. "Lucy..."

"She just ran off with the book," Happy informed him.

"WHAT!?" Ragna shouted as he turned, seeing that Lucy had indeed ran off through the door behind them. "What the hell's she doing?"

"You said that there was a secret, so she wanted to read it," the cat told him.

"WE'RE STILL IN THE MANSION!" Ragna shouted in return.

"Not the best coordinated group are you?" Everlue noted condescendingly as he began to sink into the ground. "I'll be going after the girl then! The three of you will be left to my hired help!"

"Hired help?" Natsu growled as a secret passage opened to reveal two bizarrely dressed men, one of which was carrying a large frying pan. "...How long did he make you wait there for your reveal?"

"About ten minutes," the unarmed one told him. "Now you wizards face the Vanish Brothers of the _South Wolf Mercenary Guild_."

"Natsu, Happy, go after Lucy; I'll take them," the Reaper promised as he stepped forward to meet the Vanish Brothers.

"What? And miss out on a chance for a good fight? You're crazy!" Natsu told him. "I'm going to go all out!"

"Then do it on Everlue; that guy's hiding something and I don't like where this is going," the Reaper told him. "In fact he's probably stronger than these losers here."

"He might have a point; Lucy could be in trouble if he can tunnel with his magic," Happy agreed seriously. Natsu finally gave Ragna a nod and started running off. The Reaper kept between Natsu and the mercenaries until his allies were a good distance away before he remembered something.

"Hey, _Fire Breath_!" Ragna called. Curious with what he was trying to do, Natsu turned his head only to see Ragna create a dense fireball in his hand and and toss it his way. "For the road!"

"A fire wizard," the Vanish brother holding the frying pan commented as a Natsu opened his mouth wide and consumed the entire fire ball. "And a... fire eater?"

"Thanks for the snack! I'm all fired up now!" Natsu shouted as he kept running after Lucy.

"Now then..." Ragna said before turning his attention back to the _Vanish Brothers_. "Sorry for keeping you both waiting..."

"Heh, this will be an easy fight," the other Vanish brother taunted. "A _Fire Wizard_ of all things... you're our specialty to handle."

"Is that right?" Ragna asked he kept a very passive stance trying to see what the two were trying to do.

"We have special techniques for handling Fire based magic," the one with the frying pan told him. "And we know a wizard's true weakness: their weak bodies..."

"Never heard that before," Ragna muttered as he thought back to the constant brawls in the _Fairy Tail_ guild.

"It's the truth; wizards spend far too much time on their magic without bothering to develop their physical abilities," the unarmed brother told him. "And that goes double if the wizard in question happens to be a crippled old ma-"

"QUIT CALLING ME OLD DAMN IT!" Ragna shouted as he rushed forward and blasted the first of the brother's through the walls with an enraged haymaker and caused the entire mansion to tremble at the might.

"He did that with just his fist!?" the brother wielding the frying pan shouted before he readied his massive weapon and launched his body into the air. "No matter! I'll crush you all the same!" He brought down the frying pan on top of his target with enough power to again cause the entire manor to quake, but his target had not been under the attack. "Where did he-!?"

Out of seemingly nowhere, Ragna appeared in front of him and delivered a jaw shattering kick to his face. Dropping the massive frying pan, the second mercenary was sent flying the opposite direction as his brother and once more crashed through the walls.

"Fire Wizards are your specialty, eh? You must really suck at your jobs then," Ragna muttered. "I don't have much time to waste. I should catch up with the others before they... Hmm?" The sound of footsteps came in quite clear to the reaper. Turning his head he saw that a new figure had come to enter the library. "Frickin' great, another one..."

"Apparently I chose an interesting day to arrive," the figure said as it stood in the doorway before the Grim Reaper. It's armor was combination of thick ladder padding with metal plates over its weaker points as well as metal pauldrons. Its face was shrouded by a metal mask carved into the shape of a face with a strangely designed beard and the make XIII on the forehead. The rest of its head was covered by a brown hood that appeared to be attached to the mask and armor. On the figures back was a massive two-handed war blade which also carried a XIII mark on it.

"Who the hell are you?" Ragna demanded as he turned to face the new one.

"I am the Thirteenth Blade of Gilgamesh; Gilgamesh XIII for short," the figure told him, its male voice both matured and refined. "Have you ever heard of our order?"

"I haven't, but I'm not exactly from around here," the Reaper admitted at he kept himself in a ready stance.

"Even if you are from across the seas I would have thought you'd have heard rumors of us at the very least. _The Order of Gilgamesh_ is a collection of some of the greatest mercenaries. Its goal is to show the world that humanity does not have the rely on the ways of the Arcane to move forward, training our bodies to the absolute peak is more than enough to accomplish anything a wizard could... which brings us to why I am here."

 **(Cue RWBY** _Red Like Roses_ _II_ )

The figure then took the massive blade out from behind his back, removing the weapon from its leather carrying straps. "Duke Everlue has told us of Wizards threatening his property and attempting a break in; he's paid in advance to stop them. I can clearly see you're one such wizard."

"If I tell you no, will you walk away?" Ragna asked, receiving no response. "It was worth a shot I guess..."

"Enough talk; your death stands before you!" Gilgamesh told him as he rushed forward with his massive blade at speeds faster than Ragna had been expecting. He barely had time to flip the Vanish brother's massive frying pan up from the ground using his foot, catch it with his left hand and defend himself with the new weapon.

"You're trying to bring death to a Grim Reaper? Don't make me laugh!" the red coated rebel shouted as he managed to force the swords man back before swinging with his frying pan, causing the two weapons to clash against one another.

"I've never heard of a Grim Reaper using a frying pan in place of his scythe," XIII said as he leaped back and unleash a vicious slash that shot a massive blade of non-magical wind at Ragna. Turning the frying pan around and using it as a shield, Ragna managed to block the attack without resistance. Once it had finished, he swung the weapon around and rested it on his shoulder... grimacing slightly at the unusual feeling.

"Point taken..." he muttered in partial agreement to Gilgamesh's comment.

Planting its massive blade into the ground as slashing forward, Gilgamesh sent a total storm of debris at Ragna. Instead of countering with its own weapon, Ragna instead rushed forward and carried the over-sized frying pan with him through the wreckage, swinging it at XIII when he was within range. The mercenary leaped up into the air to avoid the attack, using his great sense of speed to run up along the walls before leaping to the other side of the room.

Vaulting himself into the air, the Reaper and the Mercenary swung at each other with their massive weapons clashing with each other and generating wicked sparks. Using one of the attacks to vault himself higher into the air, Ragna somersault forward and blasted Gilgamesh through the libraries door. XIII grunted as he fell to the ground floor and crash into the wall on the other side of the room.

' _Damn, if I hadn't blocked that attack he could have killed me with that one shot,_ ' Gilgamesh thought as he rose. ' _That power behind his attacks... Is he really a wiz-_ ' The massive fireball heading towards him from the Library snapped him back to reality as the orb exploded sending countless small wisps of fire raining down upon him. Readying his blade, Gilgamesh managed to swing his blade dozen of times in the mere blink of an eye... but Ragna had managed to gut under his guard. _'HOW!?_ '

Gilgamesh swung again out of desperation, but Ragna back up and dodge the thick blade with ease. Swinging again, this time the mercenary's blade raked harmlessly off against the thick iron. Before XIII could go in for another swing, Ragna brought the pan's handle back and thrust it, hitting his diaphragm. XIII gagged as he stumbled forward, right before Ragna swung the pan upwards and knocked Gilgamesh off of his feet. The mercenary then saw the massive bludgeoning weapon raised above the Reaper's head.

' _Shit...'_

Every window in the Everlue manor shattered to pieces when Ragna brought the massive pan down, the very force causing a great tremor that was felt in the surrounding town.

 _ **(End Theme)**_

Ragna looked down at the battered form of the mysterious Gilgamesh and sighed. Looking at the massive frying pan in his left hand, he sighed before letting his _Requip_ magic store the weapon for later use. He turned and began walking away to chase after Lucy, but paused as the masked figure behind him started to rise.

"You'd be doing us both a favor if you played dead," Ragna said darkly, keeping his back to his opponent.

"You... you didn't kill me... even though I wouldn't have done the same for you... Why?" XIII demanded.

"I've killed plenty already, and I didn't think leaving you alive would come back to haunt me," the Reaper told him with confidence. "Don't get in my way; I've still got work to do."

"Wait," Gilgamesh demanded as he threw his sword. Ragna grunted as he managed to catch the thing without turning. "As of right now both my blade and my title belong to you."

"...I'll take the sword, but don't bother giving me your damn title. Aren't you supposed to hate wizards anyways?"

"Indeed, but I think the others will quickly see that you're not just any wizard... plus it's either this or I fall upon the blade here and now," XIII told him. "Truth is... I'm the first one to give their blade and title away."

"Fine, fine, I'll take this so you don't have commit seppuku or whatever," Ragna reluctantly agreed. "Still, get outta here. Something tells me that the rest of my team's just about to get warmed up."

"Very well... I'll take the sage advise of a seasoned veteran," XIII said as he slowly stumbled away.

"The sword feels pretty good at least," the Reaper muttered as he began catching up with the others. Heading into the same door that he'd seen Natsu and Lucy disappear into, he came to the sudden realization. "Wait... did I just get called old _AGAIN!?_ "

 _ **Author's Note**_

 _ **S: Whelp, guess this turned out to be a two-parter. I could've made this and the next episode into one chapter, but then this would've been delayed a week.**_

 _ **H: You know people are just going to complain now that they'll have to wait a month or longer for the conclusion.**_

 _ **S: C'mon, it's not that bad. I mean how many followers does this story have?**_

 _ **H: Over a hundred.**_

 _ **S: What!? But there are only two chapters out!**_

 _ **H: Aye! People must want to see more of Happy!**_

 _ **S: I wonder... Anyways guys, be sure you leave a review. Until next time!**_

 _ **S and H: Ciao!**_


	4. Arrival of the Father

_**Episode 004: Arrival of the Father**_

Natsu and continued their run through the many passages of the Everlue manor's sub-level, trying to chase after Lucy and the notorious Duke Everlue who had followed her in pursuit of the book written by the famous author Kemu Zalleion. Their chase was leading the two further and further down into the mansion's depths.

"Damn it! I knew I should have stayed up there and fought!" Natsu shouted angrily as Happy flew beside him. "Ragna's probably having a great fight up there and we're stuck chasing after Lucy and some old man!"

"Ragna did tell us that Everlue might be the real threat here," Happy reminded. "With the _Digger_ magic that we've seen, he might just have a point."

"Errrr... I could be fighting right now!" the _Fire Dragon Slayer_ shouted out in annoyance. It was then that the two felt the ground quake beneath them. Happy was unaffected as the cat was flying, but Natsu had to pause in his running and tried to regain his shaken balance. When the shaking ended he glanced up at the ceiling. "See? Ragna's probably having the time of his life."

"I could try flying up ahead to look for Lucy," Happy suggested. "You can try to catch up to us as we go."

"Yeah, you do that. Don't stop until you find Everlue, I want to be able to clobber him good!"

"Aye!" Happy shouted as he flew on up ahead and left Natsu running behind him.

"I wonder what Ragna's going through up there?" Natsu thought before a _massive_ rumble was heard throughout the manor, the force of which was actually enough to send Natsu off of his feet. "Knowing him, somebody probably just called him an old man again."

 _-Further Underground-_

"This... this is horrible," Lucy said looking through the book. "So this is why I haven't seen a new book by Kemu Zaleon and why...?" As she flipped through the hundereds of pages of the book, she had a set of magical glasses upon her face. The glasses allowed her to read through books at a breakneck pace, allowing her to find the truth of this book more easily. "Looks like I've just about decoded it..."

"GOOD! THEN YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT YOU'VE FOUND!" Before Lucy had time to react, two hands reached out from the wall behind her and pinned them behind her back. "Boyoyo. So then what's the secret of the book? Tell me!"

"Rgh!" Lucy growled as she felt the arms pinned behind her. "You-! You monster! What did you to Kemu Zaleon!"

"Him? Oh I just happened to acquire him though my usual means," Everlue told her threateningly. "Deception, blackmailing, and bribery. How else do you think I managed to come into my enormous fortune? I knew you were ugly, but naive to boot? You really are a cursed woman."

"I'M NOT UGLY!" Lucy shouted, screaming as the Duke applied more pressure to her arms. "You kept him in his own personal prison for so long!"

"And what did he have to show for it? A cheaply made book that didn't reflect my magnificence in the slightest! Now, tell me the secret or else I'll-!"

Using every bit of her resolve Lucy slammed her head back, smashing it into the Duke's large nose. He lurched back slight, but only continued to increase his preasure to Lucy's arms, causing her to grimace further.

"Stupid blonde! You have no idea what you're dealing with!" the Duke said, seething with rage. "It doesn't matter anyways, you don't need your arms to tell me of the secrets of _Daybre-!"_

"HAPPY TACKLE!" came the sudden battle cry as the blue cat barreled into the perverse Duke's head, causing him to grunt and let go of Lucy as Happy flipped back landing in the murky sewer waters.

"Happy!" Er... thanks for saving me, but shouldn't you get out of there?"

"But it feels good! Aye!"

"Tch, another annoyance," Everlue muttered before he saw Lucy reaching for her keys. "You're-!"

" _OPEN! GATE OF THE GIANT CRAB!"_ Lucy shouted as a large magic circle appeared before her. " _CANCER!"_

The spirit summoned was a strange one to say the least, red crab legs sprouted out of its back and a bizarre red and black hair style to add to it. It appeared human overall and was dressed as such. It weapon of choice appeared to be two pairs of scissors and was rocking a dark pair of shades.

"CRAB!" Happy gurgled from the sewer.

"Hey, baby," the crab person said in a rather sauve sounding voice. "You need another haircut."

"Not today, I'm hoping to take down this pervert," Lucy said as she pointed to Everlue, the Duke beginning to laugh.

"So, that's how it is then?" he said through his chuckles.

"LUCY!" came a call from behind the ground. Natsu then ran onto the sceen.

"It's over Everlue, we've got you outnumbered!"

"Maybe, but I have only last card to play!" Everlue said as he grabbed out his own spirit key, surprising everyone. "OPEN! GATE OF THE MAIDEN!" Another magic circle formed, this time revealing the giant gorilla of a maid that had first greeted Lucy up above.

"Virgo's a celestial spirit!?" Lucy exclaimed at the maid that stood before her.

"Boyoyo, of course she is, how else could you explain an angelic lady such as her?" Everlue complimented as he stroked his nose-hair mustache. "I'm giving you this last chance to return that book to me, otherwise you'll be completely overwhelmed once the _Vanish_ _Brothers_ are done with your crippled friend."

"Sorry, who's done with what now?" came the familiar voice of Ragna the Bloodedge. The Grim Reaper calmly walked to the scene of the conflict.

"Y-You beat the _Vanish Brothers!?_ " Everlue demanded with shock. "Curses, I knew I should have requested that third mercenary sooner; you'd have been no match for him if he'd been here."

"You're talking about _Thirteen_ , right?" Ragna questioned rather nonchalantly.

"H-How did you know that!?" Everlue demanded before realizing. "No... You couldn't have beaten him..."

"I did, and he went down easy," Ragna told the Duke with a chuckle. He then saw that the Duke was looking over him almost like he was analyzing the Reaper. The old man's gaze was enough to make Ragna's skin crawl.

"Hmmm... Perhaps then I should have hired you in the first place," Everlue said, looking over Ragna. "You do seem to have a good amount of ability if you've managed to defeat three mercenaries with ease, and your appearance would tell me that a long life of experience..." Ragna was about to tell the old pervert off (partially to refuse the job, partially to insist he wasn't old), but Everlue wasn't done. "And I never thought I'd say this to a man, but looking over you now you do seem to have the kind of face I would hire to guard my person."

"Wait..." Lucy began. "Everlue hated my cute charm but had all of those freaky maids at his side. Meaning if he wants to hire Ragna..." Her mind coming to the obvious conclusion, her head made a creaking sound as she slowly and worriedly turned her head to her friends. Natsu and Happy were covering their mouths with their hands trying not to laugh at the comment, Cancer didn't seem to care and was waiting for her to give the order, and Ragna... Lucy couldn't see the top of his face with the darkness cast by both his hair and his complexion. "R-Ragna?"

"Lucy..." the Reaper slowly began. His voice was so cold and void of emotion that everyone around him froze at just the sound of it. "I want you to take that crab of yours, and make this idiot bald... with _tweezers._ "

"...Boyoyo?" the Duke asked, now very much terrified.

"That's harsh, baby..." Cancer said, the crab himself appearing to be nervous.

"Y-You got it!" Lucy said nervously as she pointed at Everlue. "All right Cancer! You heard the man! Take Everlue down!"

"Understood, baby," the Crab said rushing forward.

"You won't touch the master!" Virgo shouted as she leaped up into the air and attempted to crush its enemy Celestial Spirit under its massive weight.

"Natsu!" Ragna shouted out, throwing another fireball into the air.

"I'm on it!" Natsu shouted as he jumped into the air, devouring the fireball before intercepting Virgo. _**"Fire Dragon Iron Fist!**_ **"**

The resulting attack sent Argo flying through the air with a pained shout before she crashed into the walls and remained still.

"My Maid!" Everlue cried, right before noticing the shadow looming over him.

"Hold still, baby," Cancer instructed, right before going to town on Everlue. The Duke gave a high pitched scream as the Crab Spirit gave a forced 'haircut' to the old man. Soon Everlue was passed out on the ground, his head completely void of hair and the strange nose hair mustache completely gone.

"Serves you right for what you've done," Lucy said as she glared angrily at the old man.

' _Sounds like she managed to decode whatever message was in that book,'_ Ragna thought to himself before turning to Cancer, the crab looking over Ragna and appearing to be deep in thought. "What the hell are you looking at?"

"Mmmmm, your hair looks like it needs some work," Cancer told Ragna as he looked at the man's silver hair and snipped his scissors in the air. "A few adjustments and I can turn it into an art piece, ba-"

"Touch a single stand of hair and I'll give Happy that steamed crab dinner he's always wanted," Ragna threatened causing Cancer to sweat with fear.

"Don't be so harsh on him, you could use the haircut anyways," Lucy told him. "Go ahead and head back Cancer, you've done enough."

"Until next time, baby," the Crab said before he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Now that we got the book, it's time we headed back," Ragna muttered before the ground began to shake. "Come on, now what?"

From beside the four, a large portion to the sewer water to burst from the ground. Lucy screamed as the murky water nearly hit them before a giant figure rose from the depths. "RRRRRRRRRRRRRR..." The figure was of an apeish design, its wet and messy fur a disgusting shade of greenish-gray. This was reflected in the putrid smell which nearly caused everyone around it to gag as it towered over them at 12 feet tall, even while hunched over.

"A Vulcan!?" Happy shouted out.

"What's one of those damn dirty apes doing in the sewers?" Natsu groaned as he tried to cover his nose.

"Was that freak Everlue keeping one as a pet!?" Lucy shouted through her gagging before she noticed that the monster was looking _directly_ at her. "Oh no..."

"Wuman...?" the creature said with something of a slur. The thing then rose to its full height and began beating its chest with great ferocity. "WUUUUUUMAN!"

"NOT AGAIN!" cried out before the giant of a monster launched itself her, a perverse shine in its eyes as it reached for Lucy's attractive form.

" _Requip._ "

"Ooo?"

The monster's last monkey grunt was followed by a deafening _**CLANG**_ as the monster was hit by a massive frying pan. Lucy saw the monster's surprised and pained face the for the split second the weapon made contact, right before it was sent spiraling into the sewer wall; a massive cloud of dust forming as it barreled through the thick stone wall and causing the sewer rumble. The monster projectile created a hole that rivaled Everlue's digger magic in how deep it was. Ragna then gave a sigh as he slung the massive frying pan over his shoulder.

"I think you've had to deal with more than enough perverts lately," the Grim Reaper told the Celestial Wizard, which was followed by no argument from her. Ragna then turned to see Natsu and Happy... oddly shaken...

"He really is starting to be like... that..." Natsu said, sweating and shaking with fear.

"Aye, and I thought _Fairy Tail_ could barely handle one of them..." Happy said, the cat also visibly shaken.

"Seriously, what is it with them and the magic I use?" Ragna said with a groan as he unequipped his weapon, right as the entirety of the sewers began to shake again. Dust and stone began to rain down from up about as the holes Everlue had created with his magic began to cave in.

"This place is collapsing!" Lucy shouted.

"Aye!" came Happy's oddly joyous response.

"I thought you said you didn't want to destroy this place," Natsu accused the Reaper with a miffed expression on his face. "We could've just done this from the start..."

"DON'T YOU DARE PIN THIS ON ME!" Ragna shouted as the building collapsed around them.

 _-TimeSkip- Employer's Residence_

Their second visit to the mansion of the man that had hired this team had a very different feel to it. The team hadn't arrived at the man's estate that long ago, but in the ten minutes that they had sat down across from him, Kaby Melon had said nothing. He sat slightly hunched over, his hands crossed in front of his face as unconsciously tapped his foot, glaring at the team. His wife stood behind him and said nothing, but it was clear that she was worried for her husband.

"...I know we were supposed to destroy the book, but a lot's happened in the few hours it's been since you've seen us," Ragna said, trying to defend his group.

"...So you've read it then?" Kaby demanded.

"Only Lucy did," Ragna told him honestly. "She gave us the short version of what happened; Kemu Zaleon was forced to write a trashy novel about Duke Everlue in which he took the role of a hero. Zaleon spent years in captivity trying to refuse before Everlue started to threaten his family if he didn't write the book. Eventually, he had no choice but to write the damn thing... and that's how we got Daybreak, a trashy book about a self-absorbed pervert." Ragna then gave a sigh. "And judging by how strongly you've felt about this book being destroyed, I have to guess you're Zaleon's son."

"I... think I get it," Natsu said, starting to put the pieces together.

"You don't," Kaby told them angrily as he glared at the tome that Lucy held. "When my father finally returned from writing that book do you know what he did?" No one answered. "He... he cut off his own hand in disgrace."

' _Try losing a whole arm... twice,'_ Ragna thought to himself passively while Natsu and Lucy appeared to be visibly startled.

"He died to his injuries... he couldn't stand the shame of writing that... _filth,_ ' Kaby spat understandably close to tears. His wife took a seat behind him, trying to do what she could to comfort her troubled husband.

"...That's where you're wrong," Lucy said finally speaking up, causing everyone to pause.

' _Seriously, why didn't she just lead with that instead of going through all of this drama?_ ' Ragna though to himself, again staying silent.

"What are you saying?" Kaby demanded.

"When we first found the book, Ragna said that he was getting a strange sensation from it; there was magic in this book; a powerful spell cast by your father," Lucy continued. "After reading this book I was finally able to put the story together... the _real_ story."

Raising the book into the air, Ragna and the others watched as magic letters encircled the book in countless rings, amazed as the book began to rewrite itself. Slowly the light faded and the book fell into Lucy's hands, which she caught before handing the book to her employer who took on look at the title only for his eyes to grow wide with surprise.

" _Dear... Kaby...?_ "

"His last book, and his greatest," Lucy told him. " _Daybreak_ was nothing more than a cover of the real treasure. He cast the spell to cover what he'd really worked on; a letter to you in the form of a novel. You were never out of his thoughts all of those years... this is the thing to prove it."

' _So wait... he cut his arms off because he did his greatest work ever and didn't think he could ever top it?'_ Ragna thought to himself. ' _That's... a little severe...'_

"Well, looks like we can't get paid for this job!" Natsu said suddenly as he rose, looking oddly happy while Lucy instead looked to be shocked at the news. "I mean, we were supposed to destroy the book and we weren't able to."

"What!?" Lucy exclaimed with shock. "Natsu-!"

"That's much more of a technicality than a failure to complete the request," Kaby insisted as he rose. "If anything you've gone above and beyond your job requirements. Please I insist; if not as payment, then accept the reward as a gift of my gratitude at the very least."

"Keep the money, you're going to need it anyways," Ragna muttered surprising Kaby, his wife, and Lucy. "I can tell that this place ain't yours, you're not nearly as rich as you're trying to look."

"Wha?!" Lucy exclaimed.

"I knew what was up the moment we met," Natsu boasted proudly. "Their rural smell told me they didn't belong in a mansion as big as this one. They had to be renting the place."

"Wha?!" Lucy shouted again, he jaw dropping further and further.

"Oh, so that's how you were able to tell," Ragna commended, somewhat impressed by Natsu's ability. "I could just tell by the way he acted; _way_ too nice to be some rich asshole looking to hire us."

"Glad to see we were on the same page," Natsu said, giving the Reaper a thumbs up.

"You mean... from the start..." Lucy began before shouting once more. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!?"

"You couldn't catch on to that yourself?" Natsu asked innocently, seeming confused by the idea that Lucy couldn't see through the ploy. Without another word, the blond stomped off angrily, exiting the room. "Seriously, what is it with her? She's so weird."

"Aye," Happy agreed as cat and dragon slayer finally left the building. Shaking his head at the display, Ragna rose to his feet and began to walk away himself, stopping only to glace over his shoulder.

 **(Cue** _ **Cowboy BeBop**_ _Call me, Call me_ **)**

"Father..." Kaby said as he continued to stare at the books cover before holding it closely to his chest as his wife sat beside him. "I've finally put that awful nightmare behind me... Now I have the last real piece of your legacy as a writer... Your last letter..."

"...You know, it doesn't have to end with this book," Ragna told him with an emotionless tone, his head facing away from the man and his wife so they couldn't see his expression. "Your father wrote that letter to you while he was held in Everlue's manor, but what about your side of the story? You had to live through years without a father, only for him to return and chop off his own arms off in front of you. After that you had to live thinking that he'd had been forced to write one of the worst books of all time with only your wife for support. Trying to put it in the past for good, you ended up hiring a group of wizards and finally discovered that you're father's last work as a writer was to you; his son." The Grim Reaper gave a shrug. "I dunno about you, but I'd read it."

Without saying another word, the Grim Reaper left Kaby and his wife. An important decision now in their hands...

 _Later -Borders of Magnolia-_

"I can't believe we did all of that work and we didn't even get paid," Lucy moaned as she slowly followed behind the boys.

"Aw c'mon, we couldn't take all of that money from them could we?" Natsu told her. "You shouldn't be so greedy Lucy."

"Aye," Happy the cat agreed.

"I still have to pay rent!" the blonde shouted before moaning again. "Seriously, we could've at least gotten some of the reward..."

"If you ever think that way after a job like this, just think about what you were able to do," Ragna told her, becoming oddly serious. "If we'd just decided to burn the book instead of decoding it ,where would that have left the client? He'd recover somewhat sure, but he'd have do on thinking that his father had just given up on life after what he wrote (which he still kind of did, but let's ignore that). Now he's made peace with himself and what his father's done." Ragna turned to Lucy. "Even if you don't get paid for it, don't turn your up nose at a happy ending; you might not always get one."

"...I guess you've got a point," Lucy agreed with a smile. "We should be proud of what we did."

"That's the idea," Ragna told her with chuckle.

"Giving Lucy some fatherly wisdom?" Natsu asked with a slightly mocking tone.

"Shut it with this dad thing already; it's annoying," the Reaper groaned, noticing Lucy was slightly shaken by the comment. Deciding he'd play with his teammate, Natsu then began to drag his feet on the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust. "Pick up your feet, Nat- …Dammit."

"See? Hating being called it doesn't stop you from acting like you're the team dad," Happy told him, the cat also acting somewhat mischievously.

"...He's sort of got a point," Lucy finally told Ragna, the red coated man looking at her with disbelief in his green eye. She was going along with this? "Besides, if it's either being mockingly called 'dad' or 'old man' by us, which would you rather have to deal with?"

"For the love of-" Ragna muttered in angry submission. Eventually though he gave an smirk, albeit an exasperated one. "Fine, but try not to overdo it alright? There's only so much shit I'm willing to handle before I ground you."

"Hah! Go ahead and try!" Natsu shouted as a challenge. "So, should we celebrate a job well done with a huge meal at the guild?"

"It's an idea, but we're kind of low on cash at the moment," Ragna reminded, deciding he'd take some responsibility in the spending. "Maybe if we can get one quick job in before night falls, we can think about it."

"Aye! Let's get a job done as fast as we can!" Happy shouted with glee.

"Alright! I'm fired up now! Let's go pick out a good one!" Natsu shouted before he began running off and Happy flew behind him.

"Hold it! I'm not letting you two pick out another job after what I just went through!" Lucy shouted as she quickly ran off to follow them.

"...Maybe they've got a point; compared to them I am the most mature one here," Ragna thought aloud with a chuckle. He was about to follow them, but then realized that he wasn't alone out here. "You might as well show yourself, I know you're out there."

Coming out of the treeline and coming into Ragna's visible view was _Thirteen_ , the so-called _Blade of Gilgamesh_ that he'd met last time... or former now that Ragna had beaten him and received the title in doing so. The mercenary was still wearing the armor that Ragna had seen when the two had dueled each other, except now the XIII atop his mask had been intentionally scratched out.

"What do you want?" Ragna demanded, having thought their business had been concluded.

"Only to offer you a warning," the enigmatic warrior told him. "A few have heard the news that a silver haired man with a limp arm, a bad arm, and a red coat has beaten me and its slowly beginning to spread, it won't take long before most cities will know of it."

"And your point?" the Reaper questioned, rolling his eye. "Did I hurt your reputation worse than you'd thought?"

"...Just be ready, eventually word will reach the other _Blades of Gilgamesh_ ; sooner or later _Twelve_ will find you... I'd prepare for that meeting if I were you." Without saying another word, the mercenary headed off in the opposite direction of Magnolia.

"That's not ominous at all," Ragna muttered sarcastically before smirking and following the others back into the town, watching the chaos unfold as Lucy tried in vain to catch up to a laughing Natsu and Happy. "Whatever; I've already got enough to worry about with these kids."

 _ **Author's Note**_

 _ **Storm: Happy, last time I was here you were preparing for a 'Shipping War'... So what are you doing now?**_

 _ **Happy: Well, I know the news you're planning on telling everyone, so I'm preparing accordingly.**_

 _ **S: From a NUKE SHELTER?**_

 _ **H: Aye!**_

 _ **S: For the love of... Alright, a few OTHER things to cover before that. First, this chapter's shorter than what I've usually written lately, but I didn't think of what else I could really add unless I did the whole Grey appearance from the anime. That would've likely taken me another week to do with my busy schedule and would have added next to nothing. I'm just saying this now, sometimes I have to make smaller chapters for a mix of the flow of the story and personal commitments... Next time will likely have a longer chapter, probably.**_

 _ **H: At least you're getting overtime at your job! Aye!**_

 _ **S: With your constant fish demands, it's more of a necessity at this point. Second, as far as my next few updates go, I'm thinking of doing 'Rebirth of Azure' again before finishing that chapter of 'A Reaper's Game' I'm about halfway through. After that I feel like I should cover a story that I haven't looked at in a while, so not sure what I'm going to do there. Besides that...**_

 _ **H: Here it comes...**_

 _ **S: This story has gotten much more attention than I thought it would have; with the constant in flow of reviews and the following count breaking a hundred after only two chapters I was surprised to say the least. When I asked what story I should be doing over the weekend, support largely went to this story. So thanks for that.**_

 _ **H: You're stalling! Get on with it!**_

 _ **S: Shut it cat... Look, a large number of those reviews have been pushing for a pretty specific pairing and I just felt like I should come out and set the record straight. I do have a pairing in mind for Ragna MUCH further down the line... but it won't be with Kagura Mikazuchi.**_

 _ **Fandom:...TACTICAL NUKE!**_

 _ **S: THE HELL!?**_

 _ **H: I told you!**_

 _ **S: FOR THE LOVE OF-! OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN THE DOOOOOOOR!**_

 _ **H: Sorry! No room!**_

 _ **S: You're a foot tall, Happy! How is there no room for me!?**_

 _ **H: All of my fish is in here! Aye!**_

 _ **S: DAMN IT ALL!**_


	5. Arrival of the Armored Wizard

_**Episode 005: Arrival of the Armored Wizard**_

"I have your food and drinks right here!" Mirajane said with a smile as she placed the dishes filled with food atop team Natsu's table.

"Thanks for the grub! Looks like it's chow time!" Natsu said before tearing into a chicken leg.

"Aye!" Happy agreed before chowing into his fish (what else?).

"So Lucy, how has working at the guild been for you?" Mira asked kindly.

"All of the excessive craziness aside I've actually been having the time of my life," Lucy said gleefully. "I mean, maybe I lost that last two million that we were _supposed_ to get, but I'm still sitting pretty."

"No kidding," Natsu muttered as swallow a large bite of roasted pork. "These last few days we've done nothing but take local small time jobs, just so Lucy could have enough to pay her rent..."

"Rent money's important!" Lucy exclaimed angrily.

"My, I'm surprised that you managed to coax Natsu into helping you though," Mira said with a strange tone of pride. "Normally he doesn't listen to anyone, so you must have a bit of control of him."

"As if... our dad wasn't going to let us rest until he made sure her share of the money was large enough for her to get by," Natsu told her before drinking. "Lucy's one thing, but I'm not about to argue when dad glares at us like that."

"Aye," Happy agreed somberly.

"I'm sorry, your... dad?" Mira asked, knowing it very well couldn't be Igneel.

"He means Ragna," the cat explained.

"Ragna?" Mira thought aloud before glancing to the other side of the room.

She'd been surprised when Ragna had come up to her earlier that morning and asked if he could earn a few jewels by working in the kitchen that day. She'd been slightly skeptical about his abilities to cook, but he'd been rather adamant so she decided he could help for at least a bit. Currently, the Reaper was dressed in a black apron and using the giant frying pan he'd obtained from the _Vanish Brother's_ to cook an order of Bell Peppers and Beef. Having one arm meant he'd occasionally have to more faster than the eye could see to cook the food, but Ragna found it as an easy method to retrain his coordination. He'd also helped with the baking earlier, leaving Mira surprised that he seemed to have a rather decent collection of recipes committed just to memory.

"Order up," the Reaper called as he moved the food to one of the plates before Jet (a member of the Guild) took the plate. "Anyone else need food?"

"Just a couple of beers over here," Wakaba said as he continued to smoke his pipe.

"Ain't it a little early to start drinking?" Ragna thought with a groan before he used _Requip_ magic on the frying pan to store it, causing everyone in the guild to cringe. "Stop it, that's getting real annoying anytime I want to use that magic."

"We have enough reason to be scared..." Maccow said, only leading for Ragna to roll his eyes yet again as he set the beers between him and Wakaba.

"Tch, whatever..." Ragna muttered before heading back to the desk where he took out a bento box and removed his apron. "Mira, I'm on break." With the nod and smile he'd gotten from the fellow silver hair, Ragna headed over to Team Natsu's table. "Enjoying the food?"

"I'm still surprised you cooked this, you never told us you were a master chef," Lucy told him with a large hint of surprise.

"You never asked," Ragna retorted before breaking his chopsticks and beginning to eat his own meal.

"Of course Natsu will just chow down on anything at all and not care at all about the taste, like a glutton," Gray muttered.

"You got a bone to pick with me, ice head?" Natsu demanded.

"As long as you're not chocking on one, flame gullet," Gray retorted.

"Looks like they're back at it again," Lucy thought aloud with a sigh.

"Aye," Happy agreed.

"They've always been like this, in fact the only person who's ever been able to stop them is Erza," Mira told them. ...All at once the guild was silent.

"Who?" Ragna questioned, glancing around the cringing guild members.

"Wait, you mean _Titania Erza?'_ Lucy asked with a sense of amazement.

"Who?" the Reaper said once more.

"You've never heard of her?" Lucy questioned. " _Sorcerer's Weekly_ writes about her all of the time, she's one of the strongest and most popular _Fairly Tail_ wizards on record."

"She's... terrifying..." Natsu said shakily.

"For once... I agree with him..." Gray said in turn. "Even Makarov gets worried when she heads out on a job..."

"So to clear the air, is her magic anything like mine?" Ragna asked Mira.

"In a way, but she has a few extra abilities to add to it," Mira explained. "She's currently an S ranked wizard in the guild, a wizard that's allowed to go to the second floor and take important S rank quests."

"Sounds like a tough woman," Ragna muttered.

"By the way, where is the old man? I haven't seen him around all day," Natsu asked.

"He probably left for _Guild Leader's_ summit earlier today," Ragna explained. "Some sort of meeting with other guild leaders around the area."

"How did you know?" Mira asked, confused that the Reaper had discovered this on his own yet had no idea who Erza was.

"...Spoke to the old coot yesterday," Ragna said as he started chewing a piece of sushi and thought back.

 _Flashback -A Few Days Ago-_

"You wanted to see me?" the Reaper questioned as he headed into Makarov's study.

"Yes, I'd heard you'd left on a rather expensive job yesterday, so I was curious to see how it went," the guild teacher asked him as he appeared to be packing a bag via magic.

"Not too different from when I met Natsu and Lucy, some crazy shit went down, there was a pervert that had beef with Lucy, and Natsu went all out and destroyed the place despite telling him not to." Makarov's grimace was easily noticeable at that last one.

"I see... and the reward money?"

"Long story short we turned it down; family matter," Ragna explained to him. "Wasn't a total loss though; I managed to get a couple of weapons from some mercenaries and from some masked freak called _Gilga_ -something."

"Gilga... Are you talking about _Gilgamesh_?" Makarov demanded, seeming upset. "As in one of the _Blades of Gilgamesh?_ "

"The thirteenth yeah, that's what he called himself," Ragna explained as he summoned his sword to show to Makarov. "Gave me his sword and title after I beat him, why?"

"...You've just been forced into a world of trouble," Makarov told him with a sigh. "What do you know of them so far?"

"Only that they're a group of warriors that work as mercenaries and seem to hate Mages with a passion. I don't see anything wrong so far... now that I think of it though, that Thirteen guy did say something about ' _Twelve'_ coming for me, whatever that means."

"It means that the twelfth member of their order will come to kill you... followed by the eleventh if you survive... then the tenth... and so on and so forth," Makarov said, appearing disappointed on the transpiring events. "Having you, a wizard, become a part of their order is a blow against them as a whole and they'll begin to work to remove you from it... Only two other wizards have ever been forced into this fight and both of which died early in."

"...Will they attack the guild to get to me?" Ragna asked, suspecting that Makarov may have know the other two wizards.

"...I wouldn't assume so, they still claim to have honor and I doubt you'd run from their demands to a battle... Regardless, they'll come for you eventually and you'll have to be ready; your life is on the line."

"Meaning I'll need to keep practicing my magic in the meantime," the Reaper concluded with a sigh.

"Speaking of which, have you managed to-?"

"No, and I doubt it's ever going to work," Ragna said in response, though he oddly didn't seem upset... almost relieved really. "Doesn't really matter, I've got other moves to rely on... once I give them a little work anyways."

"Keep your practicing constant then, you'll need to with what you're about to face," Makarov instructed.

"The way you're talking about them, it almost sounds like you've once had a run-in with these guys," Ragna accused.

"...That's a story for another time," Makarov promised. "For now I'm busy with preparing for my trip."

"You're leaving? For what?"

"A Summit meeting between the leaders of this area's Mage Guilds... though its mostly an excuse for old friends to see each other and challenge one another to a couple rounds of drinking," Makarov said with something of a whimsical smile.

"Tch, that must be nice," Ragna growled. "Meanwhile I'm stuck with three crazy kids to take care of..."

"Three crazy children?" Makarov questioned, apparently not getting it.

"My team, apparently I had a choice between being called _old man_ or _dad_ and I had to settle on one," the Reaper said, leaving Makarov surprised as Ragna headed out the door. "Later, old timer."

 _-Back to the Present-_

' _Anywhere I go there's always some asshole after my head and this isn't the first time they've been hiding behind a mask,_ ' Ragna thought wistfully to himself. _'I guess I'm just going to have to get back up to full as fast as I can so I can kick their asses.'_

"So, you're Lucy right?" the Reaper heard a familiar voice say. He cringed as he recognized its owner was none other than Loki, _Fairy Tail's_ resident womanizer. Noticing how he was leaning over the table close to the celestial wizard, it was clear that he was about to try and put the moves on her... Ragna decided he'd wait to see if he was needed before doing anything reckless. "I'm Loki, haven't had the chance to properly introduce myself. How are ya?"

"Fine for the near week that I've already been here, too busy flirting with other girls?" Lucy demanded leaving Ragna to chuckle before he took another bite of his sushi. Maybe he wasn't needed here after all. "What do you want?"

"Just to extend a friendly offer, nothing more," he told her, coolly adjusting his glasses. "I've noticed that all you've been doing is team up with Natsu and Happy. Maybe you'd like a variation on the order?"

 _'Then_ w _hat am I? Chopped liver?'_

"Then what's Ragna? Chopped liver?" Lucy retorted with an annoyed scowl.

' _Atta girl.'_

"Not in the slightest. So how about it, a little variance?" Loki continued, not addressing Ragna for long at all.

"I dunno, let me check," Ragna interjected before calling to the nearby table. "Hey Gray! Think you can work with us if Natsu's on the team?"

"In hell!"

"There you go, we're good," Ragna said smugly before taking his last bite from his Bento box. Extending his arm, he re-summoned his frying pan and slung it over his shoulder before standing. "Anyone got an order?"

"Just an order for a budding romance," Loki said as he held Lucy's hand. "One that can-"

 _ **WHACK!**_

"Sorry, you say something?" Ragna said with fake obliviousness as Loki smacked face first into the table after he'd hit the back of his head with his frying pan in a comical 'accident turn'.

"Unlike some men here, I don't like to fight dir...ty?" Loki said as he noticed something shiny on Lucy's waist. "Are-are those celestial keys?"

"You wanted to flirt with her without knowing she was a _Celestial Wizard_?" Ragna questioned. "Wouldn't a playboy like you have done resear-?"

"YOU'RE A CELESTIAL WIZARD!?" Loki screamed (not unlike whenever someone says _ghost_ around Ragna). "I'M SORRY LUCY BUT OUR LOVE IS NOT MEANT TO BE!" He then ran out of the guild with tears in his eyes in a extremely dramatic (hammy) portrayal.

"...Well that was fun," Ragna said with a smirk as he headed back to the kitchen.

"Hey Ragna, three stick of Dango!" Elfman called out. "Extra manly!"

"On it," Ragna acknowledged as he immediately went back to work with Mira (though he had little idea how to make the Dango manly, whatever that meant). "So what's the story with Loki and Celestial Wizards?"

"Not completely sure, but I think he had a bad relationship when he dated another one," Mira said as she thought back with a smile. "I think the only time he's was nearly that shaken was when his advances were rewarded by a punch in the face from-"

"ERZA!" Loki shouted as he ran back into the guild covered in sweat. All at once, everyone save for Ragna and Mira went completely still. "ERZA'S IN TOWN AT THIS VERY MOMENT! SHE'S COMING BACK TO THE GUILD!"

"She... she's what?" Gray said as he cringed. For once, no one bothered addressing the fact that he had once more stripped down to his boxers. "This... this isn't..."

' _Damn, these people are completely terrified of her,'_ Ragna thought to himself as he continued preparing Elfman's dango sticks as he thought back. ' _Wonder if she's anything like the masked freak back home... Let's hope not._ '

The sounds of a heavy metal boot hitting the floor then echoed across the guild, leaving everyone's frozen form to twitch for a moment. Steeping into the guild came a red haired woman, carrying some sort of giant horn over her shoulder. The woman was were a silvery metal suit armor on her top and a blue long skirt around her legs. Her eyes gave off the impression of a 'no-nonsense' type of glare. Roughly setting her horn down on the floor, the sheer weight of the thing was enough to cause the guild to shake from the weight.

' _Funny; she looks more like that chick that was clinging to my brother than that masked freak,'_ Ragna thought to himself. _'Though that scowl of hers is definitely closer to butt-floss's... Somehow I don't think we'll be getting along that well._ '

"Welcome back Erza," Mirajane said with her regular smile. "How did the job go?"

"Manageable," Erza told her simply.

"So um, what's with that huge horn?" a normal Elfman asked, turning completely terrified when Erza put him under her gaze. "Eeep!"

"It's a trophy from the monster that I defeated," the newcomer explained. "The town I had saved was generous enough to decorate it for me, so I brought it back to the guild." Her eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. "Is there a problem?"

"N-N-NO! NO PROBLEM!" Elfman shouted frantically waving his hands in front of himself. Erza seemed to purse her lips as she didn't avert her gaze from the much larger man. Elfman continued to sweat bullets and-

"Lay off him will ya? You already had him terrified when you walked in here," Ragna said, leading for everyone in the guild to stand agape at him as Erza now had her gaze focused upon his person.

"Looks like we're going to be orphans," Natsu said darkly.

"Aye, dad's going to die," Happy agreed sadly.

"And you're just letting it happen!?" Lucy shouted at them.

Erza didn't respond immediately to the chaos surrounding her, only keeping her gaze directed at the at the Reaper before her as he both received the expression and continued to fry Elfman's Dango sticks.

"Oi, I know that I'm not the easiest person to look at with this eye and arm, but there's no reason to be rude and stare," he told her off passively.

Erza then seemed to chuckle and gave a small smile. "I suppose you have a point, though I don't believe you were a member of the guild when I left."

"I became one pretty recently," Ragna told her as he took the prepared snack over to a paralyzed Elfman who was just staring at the man who had dared to talk back to Erza, as was the rest of the guild. "Name's Ragna, I joined with Lucy over there," he said gesturing over to Lucy with his head before thrusting the plate of Dango into Elfman's hands.

Now having the red head's eye on her, Lucy was beginning to see why the rest of the guild was terrified of her and acted so strange when Ragna used the supposedly same magic as her. Even just being looked at by this woman was another level of terrifying. Erza then gave Lucy a pleasant smile, one that Ragna recognized as a warm greeting between close friends.

"It's nice to meet you then, I hope our guild has been treating you well," the red head told her.

"I...I've been doing fine," Lucy said nervously, right before Erza's expression turned serious once more. "Eep!" Luckily, it seemed like this more angry look was directed towards the rest of the guild.

"As for the rest of you, I'd have some very choice words to say about your recent performances and the _stories_ that have been made of them." Everyone in the guild looked guilty, almost seeming to hang their heads in shame. "But I'm afraid that will have to wait until later. Where are Gray and Natsu?"

"We're over here, aye!" Natsu said oddly cheerfully. Turning his gaze over to the two, Ragna saw that the two were in an awkward side hug trying to appear like they were close friends.

"Yeah, just two best buddies for life!" Gray said just as happily, while clearly terrified for dear life.

"Yare yare daze..." Ragna muttered as he face palmed at the display. ' _She's got the whole damn guild on a leash, that or she's trying to be the guild mo- Okay, not thinking about THAT one any further._ '

"I'm happy to see that the two of you are getting along," Erza told them with a pleased smile before once more turning serious. "I'm going to need the both of you to come with me; there's a job that's far too important to do alone. I'd rather go to the Guild master, but I know that he's already left for the summit."

"Holy..." Cana began. "She's asking them for help?"

' _She wants me to work with this Ice Stripper?_ ' Natsu thought to himself as he glared at Gray.

 _'Natsu and I on the same team? Can that even work?_ ' Gray thought as he glared back.

"I never could have seen this coming," Mira said in worried awe beside Lucy. "Natsu, Gray, and Erza all on the same team? This could be the strongest team in _Fairy Tail_..."

' _Meaning they'll likely blow up a city or two in the process_ ,' Ragna thought to himself.

"Now, we have a train to catch in an hour so be ready," Erza told the other two before looking at the confections on the table. "Of course, I suppose I can take a short break." Quickly laying down a sum of jewels on the table, Erza cut and served herself a slice of strawberry cake before sitting down at one of the open tables while everyone gave her a wide berth. Erza then took a single bite of said slice of cake before pausing.

"I-Is something wrong?" Mirajane asked before the red head stood back up dramatically. "Erza?"

"What have you done to change the recipe Mira!? This tastes amazing!"she shouted, surprising everyone as she strayed from her normally deadly serious attitude. "The softer and smoother texture of the cake, the rich taste and even spread of the cream, and the slices of perfectly cut strawberries expertly positioned! This has to be your best one yet!"

"Um..." Mira began, trying to remain passive though it was clear she was caught off guard. "I... didn't make that one; Ragna did."

"...Does this mean I get a big tip?" the Reaper asked with snark as Erza stared at him in awe. "No seriously, I'm close to broke and could use the cash."

"But we spent all day yesterday doing jobs with Natsu and Happy!" Lucy shouted at him. "What about your share!?"

"I gave it you; you said you needed the money for rent," Ragna told her.

"Ragna!" Lucy scolded him.

"...Change of plans," Erza decided. "You and Lucy will be coming with us as well."

"We will?" Lucy asked in surprise.

"They will?" Natsu and Gray also questioned, but in unison.

"Says who?" Ragna demanded.

"Says Erza!" Happy interjected cheerfully.

"Lucy just stated that you two have already worked with Natsu before, so I think we could benefit from your help," Erza told her before turning to Ragna's slice of cake. "And I doubt I should discredit the clearly shown abilities of the elderly."

"ELDERLY!?" the Reaper shouted with raged as Erza continued to enjoy her perfect piece of cake. "Enjoy it while you can then... the next one I'm charging you _triple._ "

 _Then scene then transitions to an old fashioned feudal styled house with a familiar hyper and hooded cat sitting in the center of the room with a huge bowl of rice._

" _Meow! And then what happened-!"_

" _Get out of here Tao!" Ragna's voice shouted from off screen. "You're not even in this story!"_

" _Aw, Tao's never written in..." the cat sighed sadly as she disappears. Happy takes over with Plue, both sitting and sipping cup of Tea._

(This is a reference to the transition scenes from the anime for those of you that exclusively read the manga)

 _And then -Magnolia Station-_

"I can't believe that Erza is making us work together," Gray grumbled at Natsu the two once more exchanging icy and heated glares.

"I probably hate the idea even more than you do," Natsu said with fire showing in his eyes.

"I doubt that, Gas Head."

"Ice stripper!"

"Morning Breath!"

"Snow Brat!"

 _ **WHACK! WHACK!**_

"GAH!" both boys shouted in pain as their were sent to ground from the heavy blows to the head. Rising up they, both saw Ragna overlooking them with a clear scowl on his face and smoke emitting from his good hand.

"Everyone's looking at us because you two idiots won't stop fighting for two minutes unless Erza's around," the Reaper told them with clear aggression in his tone. "Now suck it up and work with each other; you can go back to your bitching once this job is done."

"Fine..." Gray muttered as he headed over to the nearest bench and sat down.

"I still wanna deck him," Natsu growled as he took a seat on a completely different bench.

"What a pain in the ass..." the Reaper said as he used his good arm to get a couple of cricks out of his neck. Glancing to the confections area of the station, he was reminded of something he needed to do. "Be back in a second."

"We're already off to _such_ a great start," Lucy sighed. "Then again, what was I expecting?"

"If you didn't want to come along then why are you here?" Happy questioned.

"Erza asked for Ragna and I specifically, and she doesn't look like the type of person you could say no to."

"Not in good health, aye," the cat agreed.

"Seems that everyone's here," came the armored wizard's voice. Lucy turned to the apparent lead of this assignment, only to be awestruck by the sheer amount of luggage that Erza was carrying in the wagon behind her. "I just had grab a few things for the journey."

"A few things!?" Lucy shouted.

"That's our Erza, always coming prepared!" Gray shouted with his deathly afraid cheerfulness. "Isn't that right best buddy?"

"Aye, you've got that right. We sure think alike," Natsu said in response with a fake and equally scared smile upon his face.

"Oif, I've heard of people doing a complete 180, but with you two it's completely disturbing," Ragna said as he returned with a steaming cup.

"What have you got there?" Lucy asked him.

"Oolong tea," he explained before setting the cup on the bench, taking a small pouch out of his jacket, and adding a few shakes of some type of herb to the drink. He then shoved it into Natsu's hands. "Drink up."

"What was that you added to it?" Natsu questioned as he sniffed the beverage and gagged. "That stuff smells awful!"

"It's medicine," Ragna told him. "Like I said, drink up."

"But I'm not sick!" the _Fire Dragon Slayer_ denied in response.

"You're about to be nauseous for an entire train ride, if this medicine does the job right you should at least feel a little better than you normally would," the _Reaper_ told him as he glared down the younger wizard. Natsu didn't like it, but he eventually took a drink from the cup, holding his nose as he drained it completely.

"Gah, it tastes so bad..." he groaned when he finished.

"Most medicine does; the effective stuff at least," Ragna told him.

"When did you even have time to grab this?" Lucy asked.

"Yesterday after we were done going on jobs," Ragna told her. "Checked the medicine shops in town and they pointed me to this stuff. Let's just hope it works; it wasn't cheap."

"So let me get the facts straight; you take us all on jobs so I can pay my rent, you don't take any of your share, and on top of that you spend what little money you did have to get medicine for Natsu's motion sickness?" Lucy demanded, though more surprised than angry.

"Yeah, what about it?" Ragna asked nonchalantly.

"...Stuff like this is why we call you _dad_ ," Natsu reminded.

"Aye," Happy agreed.

"Shut it you two, or you would you rather have to suffer through the train ride after all?" the Reaper told the two off.

"So the three of you call him dad?" Erza cut in, leaving Lucy and Natsu to freeze as they thought they'd done something wrong in her eyes.

"It was that or keep being called an old man," Ragna explained with great exasperation. "I just decided to take the lesser of two evils." Noticing Erza's silence as she pondered over his words, Ragna started to grow uncomfortable. "...There a problem with that?"

"Actually, no," she finally spoke, smiling at him. "I'm just surprised that they've started calling you that after such a short time. They must trust and respect you an good deal if they've giving you that nickname... _father._ "

' _Did-Did Erza just-?_ ' Natsu thought in shock.

' _She... she actually sounded kind of cute when she said it,_ ' Gray thought in disbelief.

 _'That's our Erza!'_ Happy thought.

 _'Wow, even when Erza uses nicknames she's so formal and professional about it,_ ' were Lucy's inner opinions.

 _'...Dammit, now I feel REALLY old,_ ' Ragna lamented in his own mind before checking the clock. "We better get on then, our train's going to leave pretty soon."

"Let's hope that riding the trains the hard part," Natsu groaned as he braced himself before stepping onto the vehicle.

"Only for you kid, only for you," the Reaper sighed as the rest climbed on.

 _ **Author's Notes and Review Responses**_

 _ **H: Hey everyone! It's Happy here! Storm's not doing the author's note after that last one because he's... well he's kind of dead. So Happy's taking over the review section from now own!**_

 _ **S: IN HELL YOU SADISTIC FURBALL!**_

 _ **H: Oh, you're alive after all. How did you survive the nuke?**_

 _ **S: I called in Azrael at the last second and he tanked the whole thing for me pointblank... Said it tickled.**_

 _ **H: Well I'm glad to see you survived.**_

 _ **S: You... actually mean that?**_

 _ **H: Yep, someone's got to pay for all of my fish.**_

 _ **S: What was I expecting? Anyways, I did a shorter chapter again this time, but that's only because I'm trying to condense this Arc down to only two chapters, so while the next chapter won't be be out for some time, I'll be trying to do the rest of the Arc there... or at least my rewritten version of it.**_

 _ **H: So it's going to be different?**_

 _ **S: I'll neither confirm nor deny. Now it's time for a small game, FIND THE ANIME REFERENCE in the chapter!**_

 _ **H: But Fairy Tail is an anime, so is BlazBlue (kind of).**_

 _ **S: I mean from other animes... and FYI, 'Yare yare daze' doesn't count. But I'll leave that to all of you and move onto the review responses... WHICH TOTAL 100 at the time of writing this!**_

 _Dread Grim Reaper:_ The one? The one what?

 _Dread Alpha Prime_ : Thanks. Another weekend update here.

 _Guest (1):_ Maybe, maybe not. I'll never show my hand until it's time.

 _The Unplanner_ : Summoning weapons like that is often related to Kingdom Hearts, and for good reason. Ragna more of a take a weapon and knock the crap out of the enemy type guy though.

 _Lazyguy90_ : Well... it's close?

 _TheGreyKing27_ : Could've used that... might've saved me a headache (and a radiation bath)

 _Kamencolin_ : Short, but sweet. Thanks.

 _Dread Grim Reaper_ : How man arc will I have to go through?

 _JOK3R OF Monday_ : Especially given the way that most of _Fairy Tail_ acts.

 _Guest (2)_ : Gilgamesh is a threat that I personally made and I don't have any plans for Nox's in this story at the moment. For that, seek _A Reaper's Game._ (Shameless plug)

 _Don't Blame Ya_ : He did... and Ragna returned in kind.

 _Guest (3):_ Thanks, I think I was just hitting burnout due to everyone putting their opinions on my Awakening fic. (Plug plug)

 _Meijin Lightus_ : Thnks fr th rvw m8. (Fall Out Boys reference)

 _PseudoSteak_ : Dadzoned Ragna is a new dynamic I've been trying to peruse in a few stories. It seems to be working so far.

 _Minicoopa411_ : The twists and turns of my own barely sane mind. Come in, stay awhile, and you might just find something you'll like.

 _The Stars OverHeaven_ : Apparently Dad Ragna is more popular than I'd originally thought, at least it's clear that it works.

 _Hopeful Reader_ : Likely no... but thanks for the 100th comment.

 _ **S: Well, that about wraps this up. Until next time everyone! Two updates in one week baby!**_

 _ **S &H: Ciao!**_


	6. Arrival of The Lullaby Reaper

_**Episode 006: Arrival of The Lullaby Reaper**_

"Ugh… This is the worst…" Natsu grumbled to himself as he leaned against the train window with a large groan. Since Ragna and Lucy had become members of the team for this job, the team had to upgrade their the car room they were staying in while they traveled. This meant that they were in a room suitable for eight people instead of four and could allow the sick fire user his space.

"Looks like the medicine isn't working on him, at least not to the degree that you'd hoped," Erza observed. "It was a good effort though."

"Tch, effort doesn't mean results and it doesn't get me back the Jewels I spent," Ragna grumbled to himself. "Soon as we get back I'm hitting the highest paying job I can find."

"You can try, but many of those would involve hunting monsters," the armored wizard informed him.

"All the more reason; I'd be able to get rid of some of this frustration beating some scum senseless," the one-armed Reaper explained.

"Someone's confident in themself," Erza noted with a smirk. "Though that does remind me, I've yet to hear of your and Lucy's prefered magic styles."

"I'm a _Celestial Wizard_ , so most of my fighting is actually done with the spirits I summon," Lucy informed, petting Plue's head as the spirit sat on her lap. "I can be good with a whip in a pinch, but really my spirits are my best bet."

"Really? I heard that you'd managed to take out a mercenary gorilla with only your pinky finger," Erza questioned leaving Lucy to shudder with fright at just the idea.

"...The hell's been saying that?" Ragna questioned crassly, figuring someone _really_ got the details mixed-up from Lucy's encounters with Vulcans.

"And as for you?" she questioned to Ragna, curious to where the enigma.

"Magic ain't my strongest suit, more of a fighter and less of a mage," he informed. "I got the basics down of a few spells, but most of the magic I use is just _Equipping_ a weapon and going to town from there."

"Ah, a fellow _Equip_ user then," Erza noted with a somewhat interested glance. "Have you found many weapons to use then?"

"Afraid not, for now I just got a sword and that oversized frying pan to use… the latter of which I mainly use for cooking," he admitted, scratching the back of his head with his only functioning hand.

"Still, it sounds like an interesting style and I look forward to seeing it in action," Erza noted before turning serious. "To business then… I have reason to believe that the dark guild of _Eisenwald_ is about to attempt something with a magical item called _Lullaby._ "

' _A dark guild?_ ' Ragna questioned internally as he leaned back on his seat. "Doubt they're planning on using whatever this thing is for any charity work."

"Indeed, I overheard them talking while stopping at a pub during one of my jobs. Their conversation was an odd one, only say that they were searching for _Lullaby_ and couldn't reach it immediately because of a magic seal that had been put in place… If only I had been more suspicious of them or knew the guild they belonged to I could have stopped them there." Erza looked disappointed and angry at herself, Ragna figured she wasn't always the confident and composed woman like she tried to show the rest of the guild; she too had her occasional weak moment.

"And you want our help to stop them?" Gray questioned. "How strong is their guild supposed to be?"

"I'm not sure; like all dark guilds they keep all of their operations a secret so it's next to impossible to get a clear judgement of their strength. The operations of most guilds seem to have a talent for eliminating their weak members, but given the importance of this job we could possibly be facing the guild in its entirety. As I said yesterday I would've gone to the master for help, but sadly he'd already left for the summit in Clover town."

"Hold on! Just the five of us are going to face an entire guild!?" Lucy asked with fright. Sure she hadn't exactly been on easy jobs since joining _Fairy Tail_ , but the idea of facing an entire guild seemed too much for the little experience she had.

"Six of us…" Natsu groaned from the side. "Ragna's still fighting with us…"

"Aye, you shouldn't ignore your father Lucy, how heartless," Happy chided.

"YOU'RE THE ONE I WAS IGNORING!" she blasted back at the cat.

"Damn, not so loud…" Ragna muttered to himself, though he felt like he should have been used to all of the screaming by now. "So… anything we _do_ know about Eisenwald?"

"That we'll at least be facing one of their strongest members; he's one of the few members that there's public information on even if it's mostly speculation and rumors," Erza told him, though her complexion told him it wasn't a good thing. "He prides himself on ruthlessly killing every person that even gets near near his targets and he only accepts assassination missions to begin with. He's killed mountains of wizards, onlookers, and officials and he seems to have a deep fascination or love for murder… It's lead to him earning the name _Erigor the Reaper._ "

"So he works on jobs where he has to kill people and looks forward to it? That's terrible," Lucy said. "If we run into someone like that-"

"Dibs," Ragna casually shot in.

"DID YOU HEAR NOTHING SHE SAID!?" Lucy screamed again, causing Ragna to grimace as it was right in his ear for the second time.

"Heard, don't care, not impressed; dibs," he repeated, trying to let his ear recover from her shouting.

"Your large hold of confidence and lack of anxiety is an impressive if dangerous mix," Erza noted before as she looked at Natsu. "It seems he's still suffering from his Nausea, should I put him out of his misery?"

"...Isn't that a bit much?" Gray noted, off put by Erza's offer.

"Relax, I was only about to hit him in the gut and knock him unconscious," Erza explained.

"Not much better," Ragna said with a sigh as he looked out the window. "How much longer until we reach Onibas Station?"

"A few hours at the very least, so I'd suggest getting some rest so that we're prepared for the journey ahead,," Erza told the group. Giving her a mild shrug, Ragna used a small equip spell and summoned a book to his hands which he began to read. "I see, so that's you magic in action."

"It's more or less my suitcase at this point, but it's still useful enough," he told her. "...Speaking of which, if you tried using your magic like this you wouldn't have had to pay such a damn big luggage fare."

"Ragna…" Erza said to him, her expression turning to a glare harsh as the fires of hell.

' _This guy just doesn't learn,'_ Gray thought to himself, terrified with what she might do to Ragna right in front of them.

"...That's an interesting idea, I hadn't considered doing that before," she told him with a smile, leaving the other wizards in the car shocked at her change of tone.

"Trust me, it'll save you some serious cash in the long run," he told her without looking up from his book.

For the next hour or so the train ride proceeded as normal giving Ragna the peace and quiet he needed to read his book covering theories and practices of the arcane. While he couldn't try to combine it with his current spellcraft at present given their confining space, it was still a useful way to kill time since he'd never been much for reading books given his restless lifestyle. When he'd finished the first of many books he was about to go for his next one, but that was before he felt a weight hit his shoulder. Glancing over he saw that Lucy had fallen asleep and was resting her head on his shoulder, though given her angle or rest it was clear that she'd fallen onto him by accident.. Doing nothing more than giving a small smirk, Ragna summoned the next book and opened it to continue reading. Erza herself seemed to take note of this, but didn't say anything as she began polishing one of her many blades.

 _Later -Onibas Station-_

"Phew… what a long train ride," Gray grumbled to himself as their train slowly pulled into the station, stretching as much as he could given his limited room. "Ugh, I'm feeling sore all over."

"You'll just have to cope I'm afraid," Erza told him seriously. "Time is of the essence here, so we'll all have to move fast if we're to find any leads. Understood?"

"Yeah, yeah, I figured it would be something like that," Ragna muttered as he gently tried to shake Lucy awake. "Hey… we're here…"

"Uh?" she said as she groggily emerged from her sleep. She then realized that she was resting on Ragna's shoulder and blushed slightly. "Um, I…"

"Have a good nap?" the Reaper joked at her expression, not seeming to mind her sleeping arrangements.

"...Thanks," she said, still feeling plenty embarrassed.

"You were drooling all over Ragna's coat," Happy cut in.

"Don't lie you damn cat," Ragna vented as Lucy's blush on seemed to worsen at the claim. He gave a groan as he rose to his feet once the train had finally come to a stop. "Come on, let's get- GUH?"

"Ragna?" Lucy asked as the Reaper harshly winced in pain before doubling over. "Wh-What's wrong!? Are you okay?"

"Does he only suffer from motion sickness once he stops moving?" Happy asked, not exactly the craziest theory to come up with.

It felt like every part of the Reaper's body (his limp arm and eye excluded) was being torn apart for a brief moment, almost like the days before he'd mastered his powerful but costly _Blood Kain_ Distortion. Focusing as hard as he could, he managed to get the painful surge under control after a few minutes but he was breathing heavily by the end of his efforts.

"You alright?" Gray Fullbuster asked, showing some concern for his fellow guild member.

"I… I'll be fine…" Ragna said as he looked his his limp right arm within his coat. ' _This thing should be dead to the world without any Seither right now… so what the hell is setting me off?_ ' "I… I probably just need some air. Grab N-"

"Right then, let's get you outside," Lucy said as she pushed Ragna outside, her face clearly showing worry her older teammate as did her actions as she was ready to catch him if he ever fell over.

"You don't need to push me, and grab-"

"I told you we need to hurry on this assignment," Erza reminded him seriously. "We can talk once I've grabbed my things and we're outside."

"I understand that, but-"

"Listen to Erza! She's in charge of this job! Aye!" Happy shouted to interrupt him as Ragna was finally pushed off of the train and onto the station.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LISTEN TO ME!" Ragna shouted, finally stopping the rest of his team cold. Several pairs of eyes from around the station were staring at the one-eyed scowling Reaper, but he didn't care. "Tell me… who grabbed Natsu?"

"He should be right beside...us?" Erza asked as she glanced to her side, not seeing the Fire Wizard. A sudden whistle coming from the train, right before it started to take off from the station.

"We left him on the train… again," Happy noted, though the small cat's expression didn't seem to be that worried.

"Of course Natsu wouldn't be able to leave the train himself! He suffers from severe motion sickness!" Erza exclaimed at the passing of events.

"Which is what I was trying to TELL you!" Ragna shouted, his annoyance starting to boil over into sheer anger.

"I can't believe I was so foolish to leave him behind! I must pay for my oversight!" Erza said, shaking her fist with self loathing. "One of you must strike me for this error!"

"No! That's okay!" Lucy protested, knowing that not only was Erza reacting but it was likely that she'd kill them all if she got hit. "It was a common mistake, we know you-!"

 _ **WHACK!**_

"Ragna!" she and Gray scolded the red coated Reaper, fearful for their own lives.

"What? She was asking for it," he told her nonchalantly. "Plus, none of you listened to me." That caused the two to calm down and they guiltily averted their gazes while Erza was still somewhat surprised that someone had actually followed through on her demand. "Now we gotta grab Natsu… Guess I could run after the train if I-"

"Don't be ridiculous, we'll use the emergency switch to stop the train and take a _Magic Mobile_ ," Erza instructed, rubbing the sore spot that Ragna had struck her.

" _Magic Mobile?_ The hell is a-?"

 _Later_

' _Seriously, what the hell is up with this place?'_ Ragna thought annoyedly as he latched onto the roof of car driving down the rocky ground at high speeds. He wasn't sure if it was because of Erza's driving, but he was pretty sure car rides weren't supposed to be this bumpy. Making his situation worse was his lack of room to get a proper hold since he was joined by Gray on the roof of their transportation. ' _Pretty sure I could try to outrun this if I really wanted to, but at least I can see the train up a-'_

Any optimism Ragna might've had was then ruined by the following turn of events; the same painful surge he'd been feeling earlier flared throughout his body and killed his reaction speed, an explosion from inside one of the train cars that blew its roof off, Natsu being sent flying said train car until he flew straight into the car and slammed into Gray, Erza coming to a sudden break as the two fell to the ground behind her, the force from the stop launching Ragna from his place on the roof and painfully onto the hard ground as the train continued to speed off.

"Alright, that sucked…" he groaned as he slowly made his way to his feet as he watched the train pass the group by, the painful flare starting to ebb away. ' _Something's wrong here, Natsu got blasted off of that train for a reason and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because he was about to hurl…'_ Shaking himself off, he made his way over to the others. Natsu and Gray were still on the ground in pain from the sudden head on impact (literally) with each other. "You both alright?"

"I'll live," the Ice user groaned as he slowly forced himself to his feet. Taking a hand offered to him by the Reaper, he forced himself to his feet albeit with some slight shaking.

"Urgh… you guys had to leave me on the train," Natsu groaned as he too weakly tried to rise.

"Their fault, _I_ remembered you," Ragna said with a small glare at the others, making it clear that he wasn't ready to drop this. "What was with that explosion though; something or someone made you get off that train."

"Right… that's-" Natsu eye's then shot open as he was instantly to his feet. "We need follow after that train! That guy that attacked me said he was from _Eisenwald_!"

"What? And you let him get away?" Erza asked, her eyes narrowing into a harsh glare and causing Natsu to grow terrified.

"If he was on a train I don't think Natsu stood much of a chance," Ragna muttered, remembering when the two of them had been stuck on a boat and he'd had to cover for both of them. "At least now we know where they're going…"

"That's the one thing that we gained," Erza agreed seriously before heading back to the magic car.

"Not another ride," Natsu groaned as he got into the car, that was when the fire user seemed to remember something important. "I think I might've gotten a look at whatever Lullaby was… It looked like some sort of instrument, maybe a flute or somewith a three eyed skull."

"A three eyed skull?" Lucy asked as she appeared to be thinking that information over while taking a seat beside Natsu as Ragna and Gray were forced to take their places up top once more. "Did each of the eyes have a gem inside of them?"

"Yeah, I thin-" Natsu was about to say before the car surged forward and his nausea hit him like a truck. Knowing this information was important, he tried to keep his wits about him in this stat. "Some sort of… ruby... I think…"

"What's wrong, Lucy?" Happy asked, the cat remaining oddly serious as the chaos began to developed around them.

"I think I might have read about _Lullaby_ somewhere before," the blond said as she tried her hardest to think back. "If I'm remembering correctly it was a form of… _Death Magic._ "

"And with a name like _Lullaby,_ that almost makes sense," Erza continued as she continued to focus on the road. "Given its flute shape, it seems that they'd have to play the item as an instrument in order to use it."

"Which could mean anyone close enough to hear the damn thing would get hit with the curse and die," Ragna finished as he tried to hold on.

"A dark guild with an item like that could have any number of uses for something like that," Gray continued as he held on beside Ragna. "The question is what they're planning on using it for right now."

"If we move quick enough we won't have to wait and find out," Ragna them all as he held on as best he could with his single good arm.

"Right! Hold on tight!" Erza commanded as she increased the vehicle's already outrageous speed. Ragna had to fight not to swear for her to slow down as he hoped that she'd at least give him a warning before the next time she stopped the car.

 _Later -The Checkpoint-_

"This isn't good," Erza noted as the group's car was parked on a cliffside, overlooking the train station checkpoint. "Seems that the _Eisenwald_ member that Natsu ran into has joined up with the rest of his group… and there's already a fatality." There was a single body covered in a white blanket as the other soldiers tried to question the clearly shaken people.

"Just one though, meaning they haven't used that lullaby thing yet…" Ragna noted as he sat on the top of the _Magic Car_ with Gray, taking a well earned break after holding on for dear life. "Anyone know where the train tracks lead?"

"I do and it's not good," Lucy told them as she sat behind a nasuia afflicted Natsu. "This set of tracks will lead them to _Oshibana_ station, and they could take a train who knows where from there."

"Meaning we could lose them if we don't hurry," Erza said as she put the device to control the vehicle back on.

"Hey, should we switch for now?" Gray tried to suggest. "If we keep going at this pace, the effort's going to take up whatever remaining magic powers you have left."

"I'll be fine, for right now catching up to _Eisenwald_ is more important," Erza told him.

"Actually, there's one thing about this that doesn't make sense," Ragna told them as Erza was about to start moving. "Why the hell are they so open about this? I mean they had a group waiting here and judging by that body down below, it looks like they made plans to make a show about it… wouldn't it be better if they moved quiet, used Lullaby, and took the credit for it later? Maybe even use these cars like we're doing?"

"Maybe they're _trying_ to make a big show out of it?" Happy suggested from the back. "If they get everyone's attention before using that flute for something really devastating, it'll just gain that much more attention and make the guild look all the more threatening."

"Meaning unless we can stop them here and now, _Eisenwald_ could turn into a kingdom wide threat if not worse," Erza said before they started spreading off again, giving Grey and Ragna all of a split second to get their hold on the roof.

 _Later -Oshibaba Station-_

"This ain't good…" Ragna mutter as everyone piled out of the car out in front of the train station, while having a still recovering Natsu slung over his shoulder. "Looks like they're already here…"

A large crowd had already gather in front of the train station which looked like it was blocked off by several soldiers. A few members of the crowd was a little rowdy as they shouted complaints while one of the soldiers in the front tried to keep control.

"Everyone calm down! We have a bit of a situation inside!" a station worker with a sound enhancing magic object (which looked a lot like a microphone) tried to tell the crowd. "We've already dispatched a force to deal with the threat so we should hear back from them soon! With any luck we'll have the station running by tomorrow at the earliest!"

"At the earliest!? I can't wait that long! I've got reservations back in Omnibus!" one voice from the crowd shouted.

"And I can't miss my meeting in Clover Town! My job is on the line here!" a woman shouted.

"And I've already had to stay in this town for almost a week because of a scheduling error! If I have to stay here another night I'm going to go crazy!"

"Please! We've heard your complaints are we're trying to get the situation handled to the best of our ability!" the man in the front promised. "We just ask that you be patient and we'll ensure that you are all compensated for this effort!"

"Are you the man in charge?"

"Huh? Ah!" the worker screamed as he realized that Erza had walked up beside him. "Who are you!?" Erza then... headbutted the man into the ground. The poor worker didn't look like he'd recover from that beating anytime soon any time soon.

"Are you in charge?" she demanded the next work, who was even more startled by the developments.

"Wh-who me?" he asked, only to be blasted away from a kick by Erza. Thus the questioning continued and Erza continued blasting away the workers as everyone watch on in awe.

' _I can appreciate someone being strong headed… but this is a bit much,'_ Ragna thought to himself. "Erza quit wasting your time with them! We've got to get moving if we're going to catch them!"

"Are you sure? I still need my information-"

"LISTEN TO HIM!" screamed the cowering workers that remained conscious. Sighing as continued to hold Natsu over his shoulder, Ragna started making for the train station with the other _Fairy Tail_ wizards following closely behind him.

' _This isn't looking good,'_ Ragna thought as his team ran through the station. They passed by several soldiers laying on the ground either defeated… or dead. ' _Some of those fatal wounds definitely look like they were made by a scythe,_ ' Ragna thought as he knew what to look out for, before Lucy was growing concerned as she saw the bodies. "...Just stay close to Erza, I get the feeling that she knows what she's doing."

"R-Right," Lucy said before the noticing Ragna was starting to wince. "H-Hey, are you alright? You're starting to act up again…"

"Rggh… I'll be fine, it'll take more than whatever the hell this is to kill me," he promised before looking to Natsu who was resting on his shoulder. "Hey, we're about there. Thinking about waking up anytime soon?"

"Just… about…" the fire user groaned, not filling Ragna with any confidence.

The group then managed to make their way into a large central room… with the _Eisenwald_ guild waiting for them. It was a large group of about fifty men, though most of them looked more like mercenaries since they carried weapons. Ragna noticed a few standout from the group that didn't look like your average run of the mill thugs.

"Well, well, well… Looks like we have got company," the group heard a voice call out, though the hadn't seen anyone from the massive group speak out. "And from a group of _Fairy Tail_ wizards no less! This is getting interesting!"

Suddenly, appearing in front of the group through some form of teleportation was a man that the Team knew had to be Erigor the Reaper. He was bare chested at the moment, wore long loose fitting black pant robes and a black torn cape around his neck. He had dark tattoos along his chest and long white hair that wasn't unlike Ragna's. His weapon of choice was a large curved scythe with a skull on the opposing side of the blade.

' _...Mine.'_

"I'm a little surprised you all have followed me so far, I was half expecting you to run off with you tails between your legs and wait for the army to save your sorry hides," the Reaper of Eisenwald taunted. "And you're still here, even after you passed by their bodies on your way here."

"Yeah, we saw 'em all right," Ragna said as he set Natsu on the floor, letting the fire user recover as he looked Erigor dead in the eye. "I'm not impressed."

"We know you have the _Lullaby_ flute," Erza said with a deep scowl. "What are you trying to accomplish with it?"

"You really want to know?" Erigor asked with a vile smirk on his face. "This town is a rather well known training hub, you know? There are plenty of important traders and high class businessmen here… so many of which are within hearing distance of the magic broadcasting system."

"You're going to play that thing over the airwaves!?" Gray realized. "Don't you realize how many innocent people that would kill!? They don't have anything to do with this!"

"LIKE I CARE!" Erigor shouted before letting out a maniacal laugh. "Those people feared us and were only too happy when our own guild was denounced! Now I'll show them… I'LL SHOW THEM ALL THAT GUILD AUTHORIZATION DOESN'T MEAN JACK! YOUR GUILD MIGHT BE RECOGNIZED, BUT I'LL TEAR IT TO THE GROUND MYSELF!"

"Not if... we stop you..." Natsu said as he slowly made his way to his feet, growling as he glared at one of the enemy wizard in a white coat with black hair that was glaring back at him. "Anyone that says that they're going to destroyer my guild…" He summoned fire into the his right and slammed it into his open palm. "Is getting _burned_ …"

"You're free to try, but I'm not expecting much from any of you…" Erigor told them. "All of you… ALL OF YOU ARE GOING TO DIE! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" All around them, the _Fairy Tail_ group listened as Erigor the Reaper and his cronies laughed insanely at them, ready to put their plan into action.

"Riveting… Bravo…" Ragna told the enemy boredly, abruptly halting their laughter as everyone stared at him. "If my other arm was working I'd be slow clapping."

"What _does_ one hand clapping sound like?"

"Later Happy, later," Ragna told the cat. "Anyways, just killing an entire city when you've got a tool that powerful just seems… wasteful. I mean if you guys wanted to wipe out an entire city, why wait until you had _Lullaby_? The army doesn't seem to be much of a match for you."

"...I'm confused. Are you complimenting them or insulting them?" Lucy asked with a deadpan expression.

"Both maybe?" Natsu considered.

"Guys, guys... let dad do his job, okay?" Ragna sighed, giving a rare instance of using his team given title. "No, I've dealt with sickos like you before and you're wouldn't go after a civilian crowd with something that dangerous; you'd have to go after something big while you've still got the element of surprise… Clover Town, maybe?" Even if Erigor's face remained stoic, the expressions of many of the thugs couldn't be missed as many of the members looked like they'd been caught red handed. "I knew it."

"The Guild Master's meeting?" Erza questioned before glaring at Erigor. "That's been your plan this whole time!?" Erigor slowly allowed his teeth to grit as his plans started to be unraveled by the enemy.

"How'd you figure it out?" Gray asked the Reaper.

"It wasn't hard, I thought it was kind of weird that all of this was all happening when Makarov and the other leaders were gone. If this thing's really that powerful, their first move would have to be to take out anyone that could get in their way… and with all of the Guild masters in one place they'd have the perfect chance."

"...Even so, we're clearly several steps ahead of you," Erigor told him darkly as he readied his wind magic, slowly floating into the air. "Men, keep them busy… I want those old farts dead by the end of the-"

 _ **CLANG!**_

"You've already got me to worry about," Ragna told him smuggly, having quickly summoned his giant _Gilgamesh XIII Blade_ and rushed forward at Erigor. The opposing Reaper had barely managed to block the attack with his own weapon as he was sent flying back into the wall. Looking down, he scowled at the man who'd gotten in his way twice now and was starting to annoy him. "You and me; right here, right now."

' _He's a cocky one and he's getting on my nerves. He thinks he can fight me with that arm and eye of his like that?'_ Erigor thought before an idea struck him and he gave a dark smile. "With all of these people here to get in our way? I'd rather fight you somewhere I can really swing this thing around."

"Ragna, we need to-" Erza tried to say, but it was already to late as Erigor used his wind magic to fly off at high speeds.

"HOLD IT!" Ragna shouted as he rushed after him. Erza was about to follow in pursuit, but that's when the rest of Eisenwald threateningly readied their weapons.

"Erigor only invited that old cripple to play, I'm afraid you'll just have to wait your turn red," one of the thugs said with a dirty smile. "You fairy flies aren't getting off that easily!"

"There are so many of them," Lucy realized nervously. "And we don't have Ragna with us."

"And we don't need him; I can take these guys out all on my own," Natsu said as he started to glow with fire.

"Not if I do it first, flame breath," Grey told his teammate with their usually rivalry on full display. That comment alone was enough for the two of them to literally butt heads as they growled at each other in anger.

"That's enough from both of you!" Erza commanded furiously, giving both of them pause. "Lucy and I will handle them here! I need both of you to go after Erigor and Ragna! Head to Clover town; even if you don't find them on the way there you can at least warn the guild leaders!" Natsu and Gray's silence made it clear their neither of them liked what she was proposing. "DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!?"

"A-AYE!" the both shouted, mimicking happy as they ran off.

"You're not getting out of here that easily!" shouted the white jacketed member of the guild that Natsu had been glaring at as he melded into the floor shadows with his magic to chase after them.

"Handle them here men," another of Eisenwald members, one dressed like an egyptian pharaoh told his thugs as he shadow magic like a set of whips to grapple after them. "I Rayule will leave to support Kageyama."

"Yeah yeah, go have fun," one of the thugs said as the remaining members eyed Erza and Lucy with dirty expressions. "We'll have fun with the ladies here and-"

 _ **SMASH!**_

Before the man could finish, he and about a dozen men around him were sent flying. Acting so fast that they hadn't a moment to react, Erza had summoned a large wing hilted sword, closed in on the enemy, and made a mighty swing. The thugs shouted in pain as the flew through the air before falling unconsciously to the ground. The rest of the men watched on in awe as Erza glared at them with haunting eyes.

"...Are we having _fun_ yet?"

 _ **Author's Note**_

 _ **Happy: You're late! LATE LATE LATE!**_

 _ **Storm VII: ...I am well aware.**_

 _ **H: You haven't touch this story for almost a year now!**_

 _ **S: ...I am quite clear on that.**_

 _ **H: So why update now of all times?**_

 _ **S: I had… things I needed to work through. Look, this chapter finally got up didn't it? By next chapter hopefully I can finish off the Lullaby arc.**_

 _ **H: Finish it off? But aren't the events going a little different than usual?**_

 _ **S: Hey, do you want 'Just Fairy Tail but Ragna is there' or do you want a story that can show some differing events and dynamics? I think some changes in this fic can be for the better**_

 _ **.H: Liiiiiiike…**_

 _ **S:(slight spoiler for next chapter (even though it's kind of obvious)) For one thing, since Natsu and Grey no longer have to split up and find the intercom room, they'll be forced into a Team fight with Kageyama and Rayule instead of facing them one on one, that's something.**_

 _ **H: I guess, but won't they be teaming up later on anyways?**_

 _ **S: True enough, but I think that having them do so when their tensions are still at their highest, it could make for some great comedy.**_

 _ **(End spoiler)**_

 _ **H: And WHEN is this next chapter going to be up?**_

 _ **S: Good question, but I'll try to not leave you all in the dark this time… promise. End of the year, I'm resolved to finish the Lullaby arc by then.**_

 _ **H: That gives you a month and a half exactly. Better be a good ending.**_

 _ **S: Yeah, yeah… let's take care of the reviews.**_

 _Wlyman2009_ : I have played a few of them. Berseria is my clear favorite though the second Symphonia game was a close second. (A lot of people seem to hate Emile though)

 _Blazblade_ : Actually it was because someone named Jet (a Fairy Tail member) had ordered _Bell Peppers and Beef_. It's a Cowboy Bebop reference I've tried a few times.

 _Meijin Lightus_ : Trust me, I'd be lost without spell check. The name's Jotaro, but as stated above that wasn't the reference I was going for.

 _Lance Eterna_ : Good, let's keep doing it then.

 _Medblare_ : Nice, I showed it to a close friend of mine that watches _Fairy Tail_ and he couldn't stop laughing either.

 _The Unplanner_ : Like he said himself, it's the lesser of two evils.

 _Wowzer_ : Gilgamesh is actually the titular character in his own epic (which is kind of an ego trip). The XIII part is just something I made as a part of his order for story purposes.

 _Minicoopa411_ : When you put it like that… yeah.

 _Dread Grim Reaper_ : Noted Madam.

 _BlitzNuteral69_ : As per normal, Ragna's going to be the only BB character here, but the Dad thing will be _really_ taking off shortly.

 _Fire Dragon of Miracles_ : Wendy won't be around for a while at this rate… Shut up Happy, I know that I need more consistent updates.

 _Travis Moon_ : Bloodscythe (or Aramasa as we now know it) was left behind, and as for right now there's only a slight reaction.

 _Guest_ : Yep, right after CF.

 _MechaDragon99_ : Yeah… yet another dad figure.

 _Guest (2)_ : Just don't say it to his face.

 _The 10th wand_ : ...Well if things go about the same, they might see him impaled on a massive blade similar to what happened with Nu.

 _Bakuto Masaki_ : Note to self, handle Jellal's arc with care.

 _ThePinkJirachi_ : And I am back… for now.

 _Bloodedge_ : It's still possible I guess, and as for a name… Grim Fairies, I dunno.

 _Guest (3)_ : Possibly down the line.

 _Sieg Warheidt_ : I have a plan to take this plan a bit farther, but I'll just have to see where it goes.

 _ **Happy: Wow, that's a lot of-**_

 _ **Storm VII: NO MORE FISH! CUTTING YOU OFF!**_

 _ **H: Aw… How about Seafood curry then?**_

 _ **S: ...Dammit, that actually sounds good. Until next time everyone.**_

 _ **S &H: Ciao!**_


	7. Arrival of the Grim Reaper

_**Episode 007**_ _ **: Arrival of the Grim Reaper**_

' _Tch, this cripple's annoying ability to keep up with me is better than I would have thought,'_ Erigor thought as he flew over the streets of Oshibana.

His original plan had been to lose Ragna quickly before erecting a wind barrier around the station, effectively trapping the rest of the wizards inside and unable to call for help. The red coated man was _not_ one to go along with this plan and quickly proved that he was able to keep up with him, leaping atop tall buildings and over large crowds with relative ease and never straying too far behind. As not to alarm anyone, Ragna has unsummoned his _Gilgamesh_ blade while he pursued the enemy Reaper and was constantly scowling up at the opponent with his single good eye.

' _Using Lullaby isn't an option here,'_ the Wind magic user thought to himself as he glanced to the flute in his hand. ' _The Fairy flies from earlier made it clear that they hadn't warned anyone of this thing's power and the guy chasing me is clearly the only one who saw through my plan. Taking over the station may have been a ballsy play, but they called in the army… ergo they didn't want the masters involved to create their level of destruction. If I play this now though and kill off a large group of innocents, a high-level official could send a message that could get through and ruin that essential element of surprise to my plan.'_

' _How much longer is he going to do this? He's really starting to piss me off.'_ Ragna thought as he continued to run across the rooftops and leap from building to building. It was just as he thought that, that he saw Erigor blasting off at high speeds towards the town's edge, one of which had a set of train tracks. ' _Looks like he's finally heading off for Clover Town… Dammit, now I really gotta run.'_

Ragna might not have been Tao, but due to his training with Jubei he knew that he could make it in a cross country run, especially if he added his agile flips and kicking from his moveset. Heading for the gate he rushed onto the train tracks in hot pursuit of Erigor.

' _For now I'll lead him out into the wastelands and then shred him to pieces there, maybe set up a nice display for his children to see when they finally manage to catch up,'_ the Reaper of Eisenwald thought to himself, remembering that Ragna had used the term 'dad' on himself. ' _After all… he's not worth using Lullaby's power on, or the power of Zeref.'_

 _Oshibana Station -Foyer-_

"...What's the matter lady?" one of Eisenwald's less terrified thugs demanded as they continued to surround Erza Scarlet, weapons at the ready. The only thing that was keeping them from surging forward was Erza's previous display of force… but the stigma that had built was starting to grow thin as she hadn't moved in the short time since then. "C'mon…' he continued, starting to work his courage up as he gave a dirty smirk. "You scared?"

 _ **SMASH!**_

In the blink of an eye Erza's sword had been changed for a large two-handed War Hammer. Bringing the weapon around in a devastating arc, she managed to blast away quite another large group of Eisenwald members. Changing her weapon yet again, her next swing was with a long spear as she swatted more and more Eisenwald thugs to the side.

' _I have to careful how I fight here,'_ Erza thought to herself as she fought to keep up appearances, shifting to twin daggers as she spun herself into the forces. ' _I've already exerted my energy in just getting here and I'll need more after I'm finished here to catch up with Erigor… but if I don't extend enough of my power I'm going to be stuck here for too long dealing with this rabble to stop Ragna from getting himself killed…'_

" _ **OPEN! GATE OF THE CRAB CONSTELLATION!"**_ came Lucy's shout from behind her. Erza had been so focused on the enemy before her that she had nearly forgotten that she wasn't alone in the fight. With the toll of the bell and the magic circle opening like a door, the celestial sprang into view. " _ **CANCER!"**_

"Ohhhh… hey baby," the humanoid with crab features said, snipping its scissors as its black sunglasses gave a cool shine... Lucy did her best to ignore Happy drooling at the sight of a crab. "You got a... _special_ request for me this time, baby?"

"What is that stupid looking thing?" one of the thugs further from Erza asked, feeling cocky enough to hurl insults since wasn't in the immediate line of fire.

"AN EASY TARGET!" shouted another thug as he lead his group forward, eager to finally turn the tide on a less intimidating target. "We'll turn it into an All-You-Can-Eat Seafood buffet!"

"Just go to town on them Cancer; stylist's choice!" Lucy ordered.

"Got it…baby," the crab said. Moving faster than the naked eye could see, the Celestial Spirit dashed through to group of thugs and swung its scissors with god-like precision.

"Oh no!" screamed one thug, gripping his now hair-free scalp.

"Oh no!" screamed another, gaping at his magic weapon while had been cut to pieces and left him only carrying the hilt.

"Oh yeahhh," Cancer said, twirling his scissors around before looking at the others.

"What… what the hell is with these freaky girls!?" one of the still standing thugs demanded, only to get blasted off to the side as Erza smashed into yet another group, this time with an oversized scimitar. "I didn't sign up for this crap!"

"This is what happens when you mess with Fairy Tail!" Lucy shouted as she brought her whip out, getting in on the combat herself. Swinging her personal weapon, she managed to send one or two of the thugs flying herself… though it was hard not to cringe as their expressions made it seem like they were enjoying it.

"If you both keep this up, we'll be out of here in no time!" Happy declared as Erza decimated yet another group of fighters.

' _Hopefully sooner rather than later,'_ the redhead thought to herself. ' _There's no telling what Erigor has planned for Ragna… or if Grey and Natsu aren't already at each other's throats.'_

 _ **Meanwhile**_

"Gosh darn it Erza! Why the hell does she have to make us work together every time!?"

"If she actually asked us it would have been one thing, but all she ever does is twist our arms!"

"And to top it off now we gotta worry about gramps and the other guild masters over this whole mess!"

"Oh, so you're worried for once? That's new."

"Shut it, fridge boy!"

"The hell did you call me, Gasoline Head!?"

It was quite clear that the two weren't quite in the cooperative spirit. Since the two had gotten their order from Erza to follow after Ragna and Erigor, they had barely managed to make down the first few hallways into the station's entrance lobby. Neither of them had come to blows just yet… but it was pretty clear that it wouldn't take much more provocation from either side.

"I hope Ragna's at least managing to slow him down," Gray said getting oddly serious. "If Erigor gets to the conference hall before us or he gets away, then we've already lost everything."

"...Don't worry about him, Ragna's going to pull through for us," Natsu replied showing full confidence rather than the full on cockiness that Gray was used to.

"You sound pretty sure about that," Gray said, reasonably skeptical since he hadn't gotten a proper look at Ragna's skills, only having heard stories from Natsu. "Can he really-Urk! BEHIND YOU!"

Natsu would have been too slow in turning, so Gray was forced to leap to defend his back. Activating his magic, he managed to create a wall of ice behind the fire wizard just in time to block a barrage to dark magic tendrils.

"You fool! You should have watched your own back!" came a familiar shout from behind Gray. Another burst of dark magic tendrils had emerged from the Dark Mage Kageyama, only to be blasted away by Natsu's magic. "What?"

"Tch, looks like I gotta save your back," the Fire Wizard muttered.

"IDIOT! I WAS THE ONE WHO SAVED YOUR HIDE FIRST!" Gray shouted.

"DON'T YOU CALL ME AN IDIOT YOU DAMN STRIPPER!"

"BETTER THAN BEING A PYROMANIAC LIKE YOU ARE!"

"...Should we even bother with them?" Rayule asked as Kageyama finished emerging from the shadows beside him. "Looking at the two of these guys right now, I think they're more likely to knock each other out."

"Don't be stupid, we both know that Erigor would kill us both if he knew we just left them be," Kageyama muttered before glaring at Natsu, breaking him out of his spat with Gray. "Besides, I owe the pink one hell for the trouble he caused me."

"Oh, so it's you from the train…" Natsu growled as he stared the opposing wizard down. "Doggy, right?"

"It's Kage! KA-GE!"

"Whatever, I'm not interested in your name anyways," Natsu told him. "All I want from you is a rematch right here and now!" He gave a violent smirk. "I'll even take on that friend of yours too!"

' _This idiot. He's trying to take us both on after the beating I gave him back on the train? Is the entire guild full of idiots like them?'_

"Hey! Don't go trying to hog all of the credit for yourself!" Gray growled.

"Aw, you'll just be in the way!" Natsu taunted. "Besides, this way you'll be able to chase after Erigor and Ragna like Erza wanted, won't you?"

"Like hell! That's just giving you what you want!" Gray shouted with anger.

"Besides, it's not like you'd manage aways," Rayule told them both with a smirk. "Once I get you weaklings separated, taking you both out would be that much simpler."

"Fine, fine, if that's how you wanna play it!" Natsu said as he got excited. "That just means we'll have to knock you both out right here!"

"DON'T GET AHEAD OF YOURSELVES!" Kage shouted as he used his shadow magic to create a flurry of dark fists once more. This time Natsu and Gray tried to leap out of the attack range in order to avoid the assault.

"Buzzing around is all you flys are good at!" Rayule shouted, using his own shadows like a series of whips and attacking Gray, who was forced to defend against the blows with his arms. "You idiots just have to leave yourselves wide open don't you!? I can't imagine how your guild has been around for this long!"

" _ **Fire Dragon..."**_ Natsu shouted, gathering his power and forming twin wings made of flame.

"You're open again!" Kageyama shouted as he created snakes made of darkness.

" _ **Ice Make**_ …" Gray began from behind Natsu.

' _He's recovered this quickly!?_ ' Kage thought as he saw Gray readying his spell. ' _And why the hell did he strip in the middle of a fight!?'_

" _ **KNUCKLE!**_ "

" _ **WING ATTACK!"**_

Though the attacks may have been of differing elements, the raw destructive power behind both moves was outrageous and more than made up for the lack of cooperation between the two wizards. While Natsu's flames easily cut through Rayule's shadows and struck him directly, Kageyama received his just deserts from a torrent of ice made fists. Both wizards faces were covered in shock and pain as they fell unconscious to the floor.

"...I think I just took out the guy who had a beef with you," Gray observed, betraying his normal rivalry with Natsu with a smirk. "Sorry about that."

"Eh, no big deal," Natsu said with a laugh, as he gather more _Fire Magic._ "After all-"

 _ **FLOSH!**_

"WRRRRRYYYYY!?"

In the rubble of the wall Natsu had just destroyed laid one of Eizenwald's wizards, an overweight one with fat lips. He too had been knocked unconscious by a single blow.

"No fair! I was about to take that guy out myself!" Gray shouted at Natsu.

"Aw, what's the matter? Upset that I've already knocked out one more guy than you?"

"Only you'd care about something that petty you hot headed idiot!"

"The hell did you call me!?"

...Such is the fate of forcefully mixing Ice and Fire.

 _ **Back with the Girls**_

"...It seems we're finally done with this lot," Erza said, keeping her composure as she unsummoned her most recently summoned weapon (a greatsword). Countless thugs lay grounded in defeat around her; either unconscious, just unable to move, or even having passed out through the display of power from both girls along. Considering that she had Lucy and her spirit by her side this fight, Erza hadn't need to do anything brash and had resorted to only her basic weapons combat.

"Heh, we're a pretty amazing team aren't we?" Lucy said, her-self confidence briming after all of the effort.

"I don't get why you're so proud of yourself Lucy," Happy cut in. "Erza and Crabby did most of the work."

"It's Cancer and he's my spirit! I'm a _Celestial Wizard_ ; this is how I fight!" the blonde shouted at the cat before turning to her spirit. "Good work here Cancer!"

"No problem… baby," Cancer told her, his glasses once against giving a slick shine.

"Does this spirit of yours have to end every sentence of his with _baby_?" Erza asked with her serious demeanor, leaving Lucy and Cancer to go painfully still. "It's seems like an insult to you and a catchphrase like that would wear itself thin rather quickly."

"Th-that's harsh, ba…" Cancer started to say, only stopping himself at just the last moment.

' _That's going to leave a mark on his psyche,'_ Lucy groaned in her mind. "All right Cancer, you can head back for now."

"Yes… ma'am," the spirit said, disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

' _WHOA! He actually changed his catchphrase!?'_ she thought to herself with shock.

"We need to hurry," Erza instructed, snapping Lucy back to the present instantly. "Natsu and Grey probably have a decent head start on us and there's no telling how far Ragna and Erigor have gotten."

"Right," Lucy said as the group ran off, following only slightly behind Erza as Happy ran right beside her. It was having the two side by side that caused her to notice the face Happy was making as they were running, gripping his temples like he had a headache. "What's wrong?"

"I keep trying to remember what it was I've forgotten to tell you, but every time I come close to remembering it keeps slipping away," Happy told her. "What was it… I know it had to be important…"

"I'm sure we can worry about it later," Lucy told the cat. "Right now we need to worry about catching up to Natsu and-"

" _ **WHY ARE YOU BOTH STILL HERE!?"**_ came Erza's screaming from up ahead, followed by a deadly crash with Natsu and Grey screaming in pain.

"...That was… quick," Lucy said, both she and Happy showing blank faced surprise as Natsu and Grey had been blasted into the wall. Erza wasn't done with her rage and marched up to both of them, grabbing Grey by his collar and Natsu by the front of his scarf.

"I told you both to follow after Ragna and Erigore!" she demanded them, shaking both harshly. "And barring that, you were _supposed_ to head to Clover Town and warn the guild leaders! Why are you both still in this station!?"

"W-we just finished our fight…" Natsu said through the shaking, praying to god that Erza would calm down and wouldn't kill him.

"It took you both this long!?" Erza shouted at them. Both boys said nothing as they were frozen with terror. Eventually she decided it wasn't worth it and dropped them both. "Honestly, this is why I want the both of you to try and get along with each other; you end up wasting vital time like this."

"Well you didn't exactly take that long fighting off those thugs yourself," Gray countered under his breath, as he finally made his way to his feet. "Now what?"

"Now we head to the magic mobile and follow after Erigor; we need to move fast if we're going to have any hope of saving Ragna."

"Save…?" Natsu began, before giving a wicked smirk. "Heh…"

' _What's with that look?'_ Erza questioned not getting what the Fire User was so cocky about.

"I wouldn't worry so much about Ragna; I think we should hurry just so there's something left for us," the pink hair told the group confidently before looking to Happy who only nodded once with a rare serious expression on his face. "I'll fly up ahead with Happy and see if I can't catch up with them, it beats having to go again on the Magic Mobile at least."

' _He's actually thinking ahead? That's new.'_ "Right then, we'll see you there," she agreed. With that, Happy used his magic to sprout wings and grabbed Natsu to soar off through the air at amazing speeds. "...Godspeed."

 _Meanwhile -Clover Canyon Railway Line-_

Ragna stood alone on the train tracks, not speaking a word as he used his functioning arm to get a wicked crick out of his neck. He didn't have to hurry on ahead and waste his energy, he knew Erigor was close by. For whatever reason, the pain-filled feeling he'd first encountered at Oshibana seemed to have some reaction to the _Lullaby flute_ ; the closer he was to it, the worse he felt. It would have been an annoyance at most time… but for now he almost grateful for the built in radar.

"...Are we doing this or what? You're not exactly being subtle," Ragna spoke calmly, his green eye looking at the plateau he knew Erigor was hiding behind. Hearing a small chuckle, the scythe user floated from behind the rock formation until he was nearly touching the train tracks in front of Ragna, his wind magic keeping him levitating a few short inches off the ground. "Funny, not in the mood for music?"

"You're kidding; like I would waste the christening of this new age of darkness on a lowlife wizard that can't appreciate the dark arts. I have more respect for the forbidden magics of Zeref than that."

' _Zeref?'_ Ragna thought to himself, unfamiliar the name. "So I'm not worthy of your bullshit, is that it?"

"No, you're just not my big target… you're only here so I'll be able to leave a decoration for your Fairy children," the Dark Guild Reaper said cockily, using Ragna's team role against him.

"Looks like I'm up against your scythe then," Ragna decided the two stared down each other; an emerald green eye against two black ones. "It already feels like another life…"

"What are you going on about now?" his opponent demanded, ready to carve his opponent a new one for forcing him to change his plans so much already.

"...My name is Ragna the Bloodedge." His expression alone seemed to darken the area surrounding the two as the sun slowly began to descend in the distance. "Before I joined the _Fairy Tail_ guild... I was known as the _Grim Reaper._ "

(Cue _**No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle**_ _Philistine_ Extended (Some swearing in the song, so wear headphones if in public))

"...Don't make me laugh, old man," Erigor taunted as he disappeared from view. Quickly snapping to combat ready, Ragna barely managed to summon his sword in time and swing behind him in order block the deadly sickle from decapitating his head. Erigor used to winds to increase his speed for a second slash as Ragna again deflected the blade with his sword. Using his assassin training, he moved to Ragna's blind spot… but Ragna had been stuck like this long enough not to fall for _that_ trick a second time. Sending out a powerful kick, he managed to catch Erigor directly in the chest and narrowed avoided getting cut by another slash to his head.

Charging his magic into his fingers, he pointed directly at Zeref and caused a large red magic circle to spring into existence before him. This was about as basic of a fire spell as one could get in this world, not nearly at the same level that Natsu used his magic… but of course Ragna just had to put his own twist on it.

" _ **Infernal Pulse!"**_ Ragna shouted as he blasted a large fireball, one which screamed through the air straight towards Erigor. The opposing scythe user wasn't nearly impressed and cleanly cut the attack into two, the halves exploding into Clover Canyon behind him.

' _He's a Fire Wizard, and only a basic one at that,'_ Erigor thought before smirking confidently. ' _Oh, he's just making this too easy for me!'_

Surging with his powerful wind magic, he launched himself into a deadly combination attack. Ragna deflected the first attack before narrowly side stepping the overhead slash. He then guarded with his sword, allowing the scythes edge to strike it edge and create sparks as he deflected the next slash with an upward swing. The two then exchanged slashes and generated sparks before Erigor vanished from view again. Appearing above Ragna, he made a slash at the opposing Reaper's head, cleaving the vicious blade through the neck.

"Too easy… All talk…" Erigor said, sounding quite pleased with himself… only to notice no blood seeping from the fatal wound. "Wha-!?" The after image faded away.

 _ **CLANG!**_

Erigor himself barely had time to block Ragna's follow up strike to his own head as he was forced to plant his feet on the ground. Ragna the swung his blade around in an upward arc and Erigor used his wind magic to blast back into order to avoid the blade. Chasing after him, Ragna slashed horizontally and forced Erigor to guard before they traded blows in a follow-up slash. Using a quick burst of winds to boost his movement, Erigor attempted to slash downwards but the pure strength behind Ragna countering blow sent him off his balance and straight into the air. Leaping up after him, Ragna gave another slash and sent Erigor sprawling back after barely managing to block it.

Seeing that Ragna was still in the air after recovered, Erigor readied his scythe and took his chance dashing wildly through the sky. Dashing around, he tried to charge from behind him, only to have Ragna's sword block it easily. Warping to the front, Erigor tried another slash which was just as easily deflected. Erigor kept going for Ragna's exposed point, only to have each and every strike easily blocked. When he went for Ragna's head a second time though, the red-coated Reaper stabbed his sword into the air and interrupted the attack as Erigor just barely managed to avoid the blade piercing his skull. Swinging the weapon wildly, Ragna managed to make contact with Erigor's blade and blasted him away.

' _Alright… so he's not just some old coot…'_ Erigor thought to himself with ire as Ragna finally landed to the ground. Scowling down at someone he'd always considered a 'Lesser Wizard', he tried to plan his next move… only to notice something getting in his right eye. "Ugh… what the…?" Wiping it with his left hand, he examined it to find… blood. His blood. He'd been cut in that last exchange just above his eye. "WHY YOU-! ... _ **STORM MAIL!**_ "

A spiralling tornado formed around Erigor, creating a thick set of armor for the user. As he surged forward, Ragna noticed a clear increase of speed as he was forced to act quickly, countering Erigor's first slash with his own, blocking the follow up, and retaliating with a slash of his own. Erigor once more used his wind to disappear from sight as Ragna attempted to cleave through him, reappearing in the air above the Reaper.

" _ **Infernal Pulse!"**_ Ragna shouted again, quickly launching another fireball at his opponent. Erigor didn't even need to use his scythe to cut this one apart, instead the fireball was torn by the wind as soon as it got close to him. Erigor then barreled towards Ragna with his scythe ready, leaving himself open for the attack. Ragna took advantage and stabbed his sword forward, only to have it deflected to the side as soon as it made contact with the whirlwind. Ragna then forced himself to leap back as Erigor's scythe came close to cleaving his head off.

"Now I have you…" came Erigor's voice from within his armor. "There's no way you could possibly break through this, even with that absurd sword of yours!" Ragna contemplated bringing out his frying pan to shut Erigor up, but decided against it. "Your Fire Magic is pathetic and even if it wasn't it wouldn't matter!"

"Tch, just shut the hell up will ya?" Ragna complained as he rushed forward yet again, bringing his sword down upon Erigor. Much like he'd claimed, the blade was deflected by the winds alone and left Erigor ready to slash in counter. Ragna stepped back to avoid the massive swing before from Erigor. Sword and Scythe closed once more before Erigor used his winds to flank Ragna, leaving him to counter with a backwards swing. Letting out an insane cackle, Erigor began expending more of his magical energy as he teleported with all of his rapid strikes, keeping Ragna on his toes and forcing him to fight defensively.

" _ **DIE… DIE… DIE YOU PATHETIC FLY!"**_ Erigor screamed as he teleported high into the air charging his magic for a final dive, only to see Ragna forming yet another magic circle before him. "USELESS! YOUR MAGIC CAN'T EVEN SCRATCH ME!"

" _ **Reaper's…"**_ Ragna began as the magic sigil finished forming and Erigor's soared flew thought the air right towards him.

' _A new spell?'_ Erigor thought to himself before he saw the magic cackling… but not with red fire. ' _What!?'_

" _ **STORM!"**_

Wicked bolt of yellow lightning sprang from the magic circle; blasting Erigor with an electric current. The enemy Reaper had been too fazed to move out of the way of this attack and this one cut through his wind barrier like it was nothing. Erigor roared with pain as he was shocked down to his core, his own _Storm Mail_ fading away as he lost focus. Once the spell was finished, he floated in the air breathing heavily as he murdously glared down at the Reaper.

Ragna stood ready, casually holding his blade backhanded behind him as he waited for the fight to continue. While he wasn't smiling and Erigor had the elevation advantage, it was clear Ragna was staring him down… _looking down on him_.

"My magic might be basic as all hell..." he told his opponent, his tone dull yet merciless." "But I'd say I still got your number."

"I… have had… _**ENOUGH!**_ " Erigor shouted, his rage causing his power to explode. "YOU MAY BE STRONG BUT I WON'T BE SUFFER YOU AND YOUR DAMN PRIDE ANY LONGER!" Erigor's dark circle appeared before him once more. " _ **STORM BRINGER!"**_

Realizing what was happening at just that last instant, Ragna managed to leap back just as a massive tornado formed where he'd been standing. The heavy gusts of wind converged formed a vacuum that tried sucking the Reaper into the forming tornado, though Ragna stood strong as he managed to keep his footing.

' _Tch… missed him_ …' Erigor thought as he saw Ragna standing on the other side of the whirlwind. ' _Try getting out of this one you crippled pest, you never stood a damned chance against a real Reaper. I've wasted enough time on you as it is.'_ He finished his thoughts just as he saw Ragna raising his sword high into the air, tensing his muscles as he prepared a single powerful slash on the magic vortex before him. It should have been a stupid and overblown sight… but Erigor felt himself sweat. ' _He… He can't be serious…'_

" _ **I'M SICK OF YOUR FRIGGIN' WIND!"**_

' _He's been working in an authorized guild this entire time.. He's had easy jobs to choose from… He looks like he's well past his prime… His magic is as basic as you can get... Most of his right side doesn't work for god's sake…'_ Erigor thought to himself with terror… watching as a tornado itself was torn in half by the sheer force of a single sword slash. ' _SO HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!?'_

(End Theme)

The magically created winds quickly began to disperse around the sunsetting area, Erigor's eye twitching as he continued to stare at the opposing Reaper as he brought his massive sword up and rested it against his shoulder, Ragna glared up at Erigor, ready to make his next move whenever he decided to stop the deer-in-headlights expression.

"That… DOES IT!" Erigor screamed, finally taking out the Lullaby flute. "TO HELL WITH THE DARK ARTS! TO HELL WITH ZEREF! TO HELL WITH EISENWALD! **I JUST WANT YOU** _ **DEAD**_

"For an _Assassin_ Reaper you're doing a shit job from where I'm standing," Ragna said as he stood rather relaxed and nonchalant. "One slash left to finish you off for good…"

"And one final note to end your life!" Erigor shouted as he brought the flute to his lips, taking in a deep breath. Ragna tensed his muscles, ready lunge at the last second and cleave both the disgraced Reaper and his magic flute in half. If he missed now, Erigor would just teleport away and be able to perform the Lullaby's deadly song on him. He _had_ to make this final hit count, for it was all-

" _FIRE DRAGON..."_

"What the-?"

" _ **IRON FIST!"**_

Coming out of seemingly nowhere was Natsu, delivering an explosive flaming fist straight to Erigor's jaw. The opposing Reaper didn't even have the time to give a scream of pain as he was sent flying through the air, losing his grip on both his scythe and the _Lullabye Flute_. The former spiraled through the air before impaling itself in the ground right before Ragna. The deadly flute was sent spiralling off the canyon's edge as Erigor crashed into the railway (thankfully not destroying any of the tracks) where he lay unconscious, defeated by Natsu's surprise appearance.

' _I should probably be upset that he just stole that win from me,'_ Ragna thought to himself. ' _But…'_

"TOLD YOU YOU'D GET BURNED IF YOU MESSED WITH FAIRY TAIL!" Natsu shouted, quite clearly still _Fired Up_ , even if it didn't seem like Erigor was going to up for a rematch.

' _...You know, I think I'll just let him take this one,'_ Ragna conceded, giving a rare soft smile at the sight of Natsu clearly enjoying himself. ' _But where in the hell did he come from?'_ That was when Ragna felt something furry land atop his head. "Hmm?"

"Just in… time…" came Happy's exhausted sigh, the cat's wings showing for just a moment longer before vanishing completely. "I... used up all of my Magic Power... just getting Natsu here..."

"That explains it," Ragna muttered to himself he decided he'd leave Happy where he was for the moment, if only so that the feline could continue to rest. He was about to head over and join Natsu with Erigor… before eyeing the enemy's scythe.

Back with the other, Natsu was checking over Erigor and making sure he was completely knocked out and not just faking it. Much like he'd expected Erigor was going to be down for the count for at least an hour if he wasn't forcefully awakened.

"Well that's him dealt with," Natsu muttered as he noticed Ragna making his way over. "This guy giving you trouble?"

"...Not much, but in terms of dramatic entrances you've got your timing down at least," he told his guildmate with a small chuckle, Natsu of corse giving a proud smile. "Come on, I think the bastard dropped that damn flute in the Canyon; we destroy that thing and we'll be done with this whole…" Ragna couldn't finish the sentence, instead giving a harsh wince. "This whole…" His vision began to blur as his body felt like it was being torn apart once more. "The hell is-!?" His head felt like it was on the receiving end of one of Azrael's punches as he doubled over. falling to his knees on the railway as Happy fell from atop his head.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Natsu demanded as the Reaper had his eye trapped shut as his body felt the pain deepening in every non-paralyzed part of his body. "Ragna! Come on, pull yourself together!"

' _The hell… is this…?'_ Ragna thought to himself through his pain, slowly managing to open his eye as he saw he stared out… and found the source of the problem. "L… _Lullabye_."

Natsu saw it too, the demonic flute floating above Clover Canyon, a dark magical aura covering the weapon as purple lighting sparked and cackled around it tearing the canyon beneath it apart.

" _ **MORTAL FOOLS…"**_ a demonic voice spoke. " _ **I GROW TIRED OF WATCHING YOU SQUIRM LIKE INSECTS… EVEN WITH ME IN THEIR POSSESSION, THOSE WITH HEARTS HARDENED BY THE DARKNESS HAVE FAILED TIME AND AGAIN…"**_ A black magic circle of titanic prower and size emerged from the flute leaving the titanic form of a giant horned creature made from demonic wood, it's feet hitting the bottom of the canyon and still towering over the three. " _ **THE SOULS OF TWO WIZARDS HARDLY MAKES FOR A FEAST WORTH WAKING MYSELF FOR… BUT I SUPPOSE IT SHALL DO FOR NOW."**_

( _ **Cue Sonic Forces**_ _Fist Bump_ Extended)

"...Finally, Looks like we're getting a challenge now!" Natsu said cockily, looking up at the giant monster and positively brimming with Fire Magic. Giving Ragna a quick glance, he saw that he was still wincing but managing to force himself upright. "You going to last out there?"

"Don't have much choice, do I?" Ragna muttered creating a giant fireball in hand and offering it to Natsu. "I got it's left…"

"So I'll take the right!" Natsu agreed with a cocky smile as he swiped the fire magic and downed it, Ragna's magic giving the young wizard a needed boost. "Aw yeah, I got a fire in my belly that's just _BURNING TO GET OUT!_ "

" _ **MORTAL FOOLSSSSS!"**_ the demon screamed a bright light appearing in its mouth as it gathered energy. Flashbacks of his encounter with Takemikazuchi coming back to haunt him, Ragna launched himself as the head as he brought out the massive fryingpan he'd gotten from the Vanish brother's and smacked the demon upside the head, causing its massive burst to fly off into the sky. The monster tried to get a proper swing in at Ragna, only to have Natsu leap up into the air.

" _ **FIRE DRAGON: WING ATTACK!"**_ Natsu said, blasting the target with twin wings of flames blasting it on its right shoulder before landing back on the bridge.

The monster tried to crush the young wizard with its hand as he landed. Ragna intercepted the move, switching his weapons to his _Gilgamesh_ blade and causing the monster scream as he plunged the sword through its hand. The monster roared in pain as tried to pull its hand back, but Ragna kept it pinned down.

"Natsu!" he shouted as he kept the thing in place. The monster struggled in vain as it fought to get free, leaving itself wide open for an attack.

"You got it!" the fire wizard told him as he created a magic circle before taking in as deep a breath as he could manage. Blowing outwards, he blasted the demon with the hottest fire he could create and caused the creature to scream as Ragna held it in place. Once, the attack had ended though, the Reaper took his large weapon out of the demon's hand before cleaving it off, sending it over the side of the bridge.

" _ **YOU WIZARD IMBECILES…"**_ the monster growled as it looked down at the two. " _ **I THOUGHT I WOULD ENTERTAIN YOU, SEE WHAT THE MAGICS OF THIS GENERATION ARE TRULY CAPABLE OF… YOU'VE HUMORED YOURSELVES THINKING YOU STOOD A CHANCE AGAINST MY SONG OF DEATH! NOW YOU'LL-!"**_

" _ **ICE MAKE: LANCE!"**_ came a shout from a short distance away. The giant turned to the source of the shouting as it was struck in the chest with a large Ice Projectile. From the parked Magic Mobile, Ragna saw Gray, Lucy, and Erza running towards them.

"Glad you could make it!" Ragna shouted at the three as he used his _Requip_ magic once more switch his sword out for a new weapon… a scythe.

"I-Is that Erigor's scythe?" Gray asked with surprise.

"Questions later! First you gotta help us kill this damn thing!" Ragna shouted as he swung his scythe with great ferocity, carving the creature across his chest.

"So you steal weapons from the enemies you've beaten!?" Erza demanded as she summoned a giant axe. "That's rather brazen of you!"

"Bite me! I ain't giving it back!" Ragna shouted as the two weapon users leaped at the demon, cleaving in deeply across the face.

"Steal from… I REMEMBER!" Happy shouted. "LUCY!"

"I can't help right now! None of my spirits have any time left!" she told him as she watching.

"I think I have a way! Look at this!" he told her, holding up a golden zodiac key.

" _ **ICE MAKE: ARROWS!**_ " Gray shouted sending a barrage of the named item straight for the monster. "Tch! Stronger than it looks-!"

"In that case we'll just have to hit that thing as hard as we can," Erza said as she began to focus her magic.

"Oh, looks like Erza's getting serious!" Natsu shouted as he launched him at the creature, delivering yet another flaming punch to the creature's face. As it again charged a massive blast of energy, Ragna slashed the thing against its eye and caused it to stumble slightly.

"ANY DAY NOW ERZA!" he shouted, noticing that she was getting coated in a strange collection of light. ' _The hell?'_

" _ **FOOLS… WHATEVER YOU ARE PLANNING, I SHALL NOT GIVE YOU THE CHANCE…"**_ the demon told the group as it looked like it was inhaling a large amount of air. " _ **ONE NOTE IS ALL IT WILL TAKE TO END ALL OF YOU! FEEL MY WRATH AND-!**_ " The creature couldn't finish as it almost seemed to lose its footing, one of its legs sinking deep into the ground as it lost all of the air it had gathered. " _ **WHAT IS THIS!?**_ "

"You've got your opening! GO AND FINISH HIM OFF!" Lucy commanded.

"Lucy… you really are a member of _Fairy Tail_ after all," Erza said, giving the Celestial wizard plenty of praise. As Lucy turned to the Red-head, she saw that Erza's outfit had changed for black armor that almost made her look like a Wyvern.

"Erza's using her _Black Winged Armor!_ " Happy shouted. "Unlike Ragna, Erza can also change her clothing in order to get extra effects. This one amplifies every one of her stikes with devastating power!"

' _So that's what she meant about Armor's back on the train,'_ the Reaper thought to himself before looking at the prone demon. "Everyone give it your hardest hit! TAKE IT DOWN NOW!"

" _ **ICE MAKE: SLICER!**_ " Gray shouted, unleashing a powerful disk projectile that cleaved a large gash in the creature's right side. "ERZA!"

"RAGNA! WITH ME!" she shouted as she rushed forward with her axe with Ragna following with his scythe. Leaping into the air, both of them roared as the cleanly cleaved the monster across its chest.

"And now for the finishing blow," Natsu said with a smirk. " _The Flames of my right hand and the flames of my left! Put the two together-!"_ The Wizard created a massive sphere of fire magic above his head. " _ **AND THIS IS WHAT YOU GET! FIRE DRAGON: BRILLIANT FLAME!"**_

Throwing the raw energy with all of his strength, the magic attack hit the demon square in the chest and exploded with a blinding light. The demon gave a shrill scream as it fell backwards, crushing several rock formation beneath its massive bulk before finally exploding.

( _End Theme)_

"I… it's over…" Lucy said with shock as she looked at the new chasm the team had created in Clover Canyon. Nothing remained of the demon that had long rested in the form of a cursed flute, the smoke parting and heading high into the sky. "We actually managed to do it…"

"Tch, that was piece of cake," Natsu said cockily, breaking Lucy out of her amazement she stared blank-eyed at the pink head. "I was hoping for a better fight than that."

"Much as I'd hate to agree with him on anything, he's got a point," Grey muttered as he sat on the train tracks. "That demon just had this coming from the beginning."

' _Th-they weren't impressed by any of that, what kind of monsters are they really?'_ Lucy thought to herself before seeing Ragna standing by himself off to the side. His newly acquired scythe resting on his shoulder, he looked out into the horizon, watching the sun slowly set behind the chasm that the group had created. Heading over stood next to him, she looked to the setting sun like he was. "So you took Erigor's scythe?"

"...I felt like it could be put to better use," he told her with a somewhat cocky smirk. "Besides, I think the whole Grim Reaper aesthetic suits me pretty damn well, don't you?"

"Perhaps," Erza said as she made her way over, her armor returning to its regular state. "Are all of your weapons just spoils from enemies that you've beaten?"

"Pretty much, but it's pretty cheap just to do things this way," he decided with a chuckle.

"So if you ever tried to defeat me you'd take all of my blades afterwards?" Erza demanded, her scowl something fierce as she stared Ragna down.

"Considering we're on the same team I want to say no…" the Reaper said before finally sending his newly acquired scythe back into his storage.

"Mistress, are you pleased with my work?" a new voice asked. It's owner was a cute pink haired maid and they seemed to be addressing that question to Lucy.

"Trust me, you were perfect out there Virgo," Lucy told her with a beaming smile. "Sorry, but would you mind waiting just a little longer for us to set up our contract?"

"Of course, I shall eagerly await your next summons," she said with a formal bow before returning to the _Celestial Realm_.

"That maid… was that the giant gorilla that we fought back at Everlue Manor?" Natsu questioned.

"Yeah, turned out that her contract with Everlue was broken when he got arrested," Lucy said before glaring at Happy. "Something _this one_ completely forgot to tell me."

"I'm sorry, I've had a busy day and all of the excitement made it hard to remember," Happy told her with a pout.

"Heh, well it _has_ been one of _those_ days," the Grim Reaper couldn't help but agree. Turning his head, he noted that the previous owner of the blade was still laying facedown on the train tracks after the beating Natsu had given him. "Now then, where do we put that piece of work?"

"We'll hand him and the rest of his cohorts over to the army, no doubt they have already moved in to arrest those we've defeated back at the station," Erza assured them. "In any case-"

"Erza!" Gray called, only for the redhead to shoot him a deathly scowl as she was interrupted. "I… I think I see a train coming this way."

"After what Erigor did to the station?" Erza thought before looking at the vehicle. Unlike most of the other trains, this was covered in armor and seemed to have a few canons on top of it. The train cars were occupied with countless soldiers. "This one's from the army…"

"Aw crap guys! We gotta get going!" Natsu said with panic as he was about to take off running. "They're gonna pissed after we destroyed… after we destroyed…" Now instead of panicked, Natsu looked like he was thinking much harder than he usually did. "...What did we blow up again?"

"Is the station still standing?" Ragna asked Lucy, who only nodded to him. "Then you didn't."

"What's this feeling…?" Gray muttered allowed as he seemed to be gripping his stomach. "I don't like it…"

"Everything about this…" Erza began as she looked at her hands with a sense of terror. "Everything about this feels wrong…"

' _This must be a new one for them,'_ Lucy thought to herself with a classic anime sweat drop as Ragna merely face palmed.

Soon the train slowed before it had come to a complete stop before the group. All around them members of the army piled out with weapons drawn, moving in quickly to arrest Erigor the Reaper. They also surrounded the _Fairy Tail_ members as well and though they didn't have their weapons pointed, Ragna had a feeling it wouldn't take a lot to provoke them to do so. Of the soldiers, many were staring at the large chasm that had been created due to the fight with the _Lullaby_ demon.

"...You're welcome by the way," Ragna muttered with an edge of snarkiness in his words as the soldiers carried the captured Erigor off. He got a few glares, but remained lax under such a sight.

"I'm surprised that you managed to keep your level of destruction to a minimum," a new voice noted as Ragna turned to the source. Its owner was a man with deep blue shaggy hair with a dark tattoo over his right eye. He was dressed in a white and black hakama set. Accompanying him was a woman in a white kimono with long dark hair that fell past her shoulders.

' _Wh-what's he doing here!?'_ Erza thought to herself, hopping she managed to mask her worry as best she could. "Natsu… Gray… Go check on the _Magic Mobile_ , make sure we didn't burn out the engine."

"But Erza…" Natsu began.

"NOW!" she said, giving them both her usual Erza scowl. Both boys gave a terrified sweat as the hurried off to check on their ride.

"Ever the force of nature I see," the blue haired man commented with a smug grin that Ragna didn't exactly care for.

"Only when I need to be," Erza said, keeping her expression as passive as she could. "Tell me, Siegrain… what brings two members of the magic council here?"

"Damage control, mostly," the woman behind the man now known as Siegrain said. "While the two of us might not have as much worry with the damage _Fairy Tail_ causes, the rest of the council has some… reservations about your actions, especially after an entire port town was destroyed." She then smiled brightly, but even with one eye Ragna could tell it had _fake_ written all over it. "Imagine our surprise that you've actually managed to get through without destroying a single building, this is certainly a first for your guild… though the damage you did cause-"

"Most of it was caused by Eisenwald; quit the coy crap already," Ragna interrupted, causing both members of the council to look at him with a sense of curiosity as the soldiers around him glared at his rude comments. Erza herself gave Ragna a soft scowl, knowing his words wouldn't be improving any part of this situation.

"...And you are?" Siegrain asked.

"...I go by _Bloodedge_ ," Ragna told him, not feeling any need to give either of them his actual name. "I'm a new member of _Fairy Tail_."

" _Bloodedge of Fairy Tail_ then," Siegrain summarized plainly (roll credits; _**ding**_ ) . It was clear that Erza and Lucy were both confused by his new name, but both were smart enough to know that now wasn't the time to question it.

"So your guild is now offering positions to the elderly then?" the dark haired woman asked, causing a tick mark to visibly show on Ragna's forehead as his older appearance was once more used against him.

"...If we were, you'd fit right in," he retorted heatedly, sparks clearly lighting between the two as Siegrain only seemed to give a small chuckle at the comment.

' _Those are members of the Magic COUNCIL!'_ Lucy thought to herself as Ragna made it clear he wasn't taking any shit from these two.

"All right, I think that's enough for now Ultear," the blue haired council member noted. "We just came here to capture the Dark Guild that had caused us so much trouble… but what exactly were they hoping to accomplish?"

"None of your-"

"They wanted to use one of Zeref's Dark Magic tools in order to kill the Guild Masters," Erza informed, surprising Ragna as she willingly gave out the information. "We stopped him."

"...I see," Siegrain noted, as he looked out to the chasm the guild had created. "And the Magic tool?"

"Blew it the hell up," Ragna told him nonchalantly. "After all, that's what you'd to expect from us."

"Fair point," Siegrain acknowledged before turning back to Erza. "If you'd like, your group is more than welcome to return to Oshibana with us. It would certainly be an easier trip than taking that vehicle of yours."

' _Please say no, please say no, please say no,'_ both Ragna and Ultear pleaded internally, fearing with having to deal with each other an entire train ride.

"We'll have to pass on that offer," Erza refurted. "We actually need to be making our way to Clover Town to see the Guild Masters."

' _Thank you Erza.'_

"Another time then," Siegrain said as he turned away, though everyone knew he had a smug grin on his face. "I enjoy the excitement your guild can bring as much as the next person… but these _quieter_ jobs of yours was a welcome experience."

As soon as the two had left, Erza let out a long breath she wasn't aware that she hadn't been holding in. Ragna took notice of this, wondering if the _Council_ normally caused the redhead to have this much tension. Heading back over to their ride, they saw Natsu and Gray once more arguing about something before pretending they were best friends as soon as they noticed Erza.

"Are we set to leave?" the redhead demanded.

"Yeah, and it looks like we'll have to take this ride slow if we want to make it on this engine," Gray informed.

"Understood, I think I can afford to drive a little slower now that the chaos is behind us," she told them.

"In that case Gray, can you drive this thing?" the Reaper asked, leaving Erza to send him a strange look.

"Yeah… I suppose I can," the Ice Wizard told him, careful on how he worded himself so close to the _Queen of Fairies_.

"Mind driving us to Clover then? I think it's high time Erza got a break." Now the redhead was glaring at him, but Ragna still wasn't caving in. "Don't try and act so damn stubborn now; you've got dark circles under your eyes for crying out loud."

"I do?" Erza asked before turning to Lucy with a serious glare, causing the blonde to shiver under such a gaze. "Lucy?"

"I mean… kinda?" she said nervously, sweating like Plue would.

"...Fine then," she said letting out a sigh, as her strong side faded only slightly "I'll sit on the roof this trip then."

"Not another ride," Natsu groaned as he looked up at Happy.

"Sorry, I don't think I'd be able to fly us all the way to Clover town," Happy told him.

"Of course not," Natsu groaned.

' _Note to self; try again on that medicine,'_ Ragna thought to himself as everyone climbed on the car… unaware that they were being watched.

"They actually managed to beat Erigor?" Kageyama fearfully observed with surprise as he was only partially emerged from one the rocks littered around Clover Canyon. He had barely managed to avoid the army capturing him, but it hadn't been easy… especially with how beaten Gray had left him. The rest of his guild hadn't been nearly as lucky and were awaiting prosecution. "I guess this marks the end of Eisenwald… so now what am I supposed to do?"

While Kageyama tried to process the events and what would come of them, the car carrying Fairy Tail's team rode gently down the tracks. Since they weren't going at such a hurried speed as last time, Ragna no longer had hold on for dear life with his one arm and managed to sit casually near Erza.

"So… what was the deal with that guy? Siegrain or something?" Ragna asked, figuring out how to ease into his questions. "You acted like you two knew each other."

"We've met… more often than not after I'd caused damage while working on important jobs," she explained. It was easier for her to talk with their backs facing one another since she wouldn't have to look at Ragna square in his eye.

"No offense, but it looked like he was the type of guy that could really get under your skin," he muttered. "And with you I get the feeling that's saying something." He was rewarded with silence. "...Whatever, you don't have to talk about it with me if you don't want to."

' _It's not like I don't have my own crap that I'm hiding,'_ Ragna thought to himself as he looked up at the sky. ' _...Tch, at least that stupid flute is finally gone… along with that damn burning feeling...'_

 _-Clover Town Conference Hall-_

"My Maki, you're really starting to let yourself go," Bob, the guild leader of _Blue Pegasus_ said. He had with an usually… cutesy fashion sense and seemed just a touched worried as he watched the small guild leader finished his umpteenth drink that night. "Ever since you got that message from that charming little lady, you've done nothing but down your drinks one after the other, you really ought to pace yourself."

"Errrgghhh…" Makarov groaned.

"Eh, don't worry about him; think I know where he's coming from," another wizard with sunglasses, a spiked collar, and a jagged hat noted. This was Goldmine, the leader of the _Quatro Cerberus_ guild. "With all of the damage his guild causes on a daily basis I get the feeling that this new team that got announced could probably wipe out an entire city… or five."

"Errggghhh…" the _Fairy Tail_ guild leader groaned again, raising his glass to his lips only to find it empty. "Another one."

"Are you really sure that's wise Maki?" Bob asked. "If you keep drinking like this, tomorrow's hangover is going to split your head like it's a tiny little egg."

"Don't patronize me, I know how to hold my own drinking," Makarov muttered as one of the waiters brought his drink.

"Also sir, we have a group of wizards at the front asking for you," the waiter told him. "We politely asked them to leave, but…" The man gave a deep sigh. "They all seem rather… headstrong."

"I… see…" Makarov said, shakily bringing the drink up to his lips.

"Shall I let them in or would you like me to send them-?"

"MASTER!" came Erza's familiar scream from the front. Makarov couldn't do anything as Erza rushed in, smashing her Guild Master against her armor in an overbearing side hug. "I'm so glad you're alright!"

"Hey Gramps!" came Natsu's voice as he also charged into the room with Happy, knocking people into their food plates and causing chaos.

"Natsu, you idiot…" Gray muttered as he walked in fully clothed, followed by Ragna and Lucy.

"Well well well, what's this?" Goldmine asked as he turned to the newcomers with a cool and welcoming smile. "I didn't think you'd be bringing some of your wizards to the gathering."

"This wasn't my idea!" Makarov shouted as the other Guild Masters laughed at his expense. "What are all of you doing here in the first place? I heard from Mira that Erza, Natsu, and Gray were supposed to be out on a job!"

"Nothing about us?" Ragna asked as he glanced at Lucy, feeling just a little left out.

"Well I don't think we exactly fit into _Fairy Tail's_ problem wizards… yet."

' _Yet? Is she going to try and cause their level of damage?'_ he thought worriedly before reconsidering. ' _What am I saying; she's got more sense than that.'_

"Master, the truth is you were the targets of the _Dark Guild_ we had gone after," Erza explained, ever keeping the air of authority. " _Eisenwald_ had planned on killing all of you here with a magic tool of the Dark Wizard Zeref."

"Dark Tool? What are you talking about?" Makarov demanded.

"It's true," Natsu said… through his mouthful of food. Apparently he'd quickly given up on checking on Makarov and had instead gone after the Guild Master's spread. "Some kinda demon thing showed up out of nowhere and-" He then began to slurp an large and inexplicable ramen bowl.

"Oi, that's not our food," Ragna said with a growl at his teammate, only to notice Happy quickly grabbing some fatty tuna sushi. He facepalmed hard at the chaos around him. "Yare yare…"

"Oh my, at the very least it sounds like all of you went through quite the exciting journey," Bob noted. While his… unique appearance caused most of the team to cringe, Ragna was too deep in his facepalm to care (also, Amane had prepared him for this to a degree). "It sounds like you young people had quite the fun time."

"I wouldn't exactly call it fun…" Lucy sighed, remembering all of the trouble the group had gone through.

"And…" Makarov began, shaking with fear at the answer he might receive. "...How bad was the damage?"

' _That's what he's worried about,'_ the Reaper thought darkly to himself. "Well Oshibana station's still standing and most of the damage was done by the _Dark Guild…_ so not much."

"You don't have to let me off gently! My heart can take it!" Makarov shouted. "I want you to tell me how much damage you all caused with those three in your team!"

"I understand your concern Master, but he's telling you the truth," Erza reaffirmed. "When we handed Erigor the Reaper directly over to the Army they didn't even try to arrest us."

"We totally could'a caused more damage," Natsu disappointedly muttered through his food.

"Aye," Happy agreed whilst chewing on sushi.

"That's what we're trying to avoid!" Lucy shouted at the two of them.

"Nothing happened… with all three of you on the same team," Makarov said mostly to himself. A look of awe upon his face.

"Master? Are you… crying?" Gray asked, staring in surprise at the small _Guild Leader_ … whilst also not realizing he'd once again stripped down to his boxers.

"Alright, I think that about marks my limit on chaos for the day," Ragna muttered as he headed over to Natsu and proceeded to start dragging him away from the food table. "Come on you."

"But I'm not done eating yet!" Natsu shouted. "Come on! Feeding us is the least they can do after we saved them!"

"Gray, put your clothes on and grab Happy, will ya?" he asked the Ice Wizard who (after the minor freakout at his unintentional stripping) grabbed the blue cat from the sushi section. "After the day I had, I need a long bath and nice bed to sleep in."

"I second that notion," Lucy said as she raised her hand, far and away done with that day.

"A bath does sound lovely, and I do think we could all use a rest," Erza herself agreed. Turning to the Guild Masters, she gave a polite bow before following Ragna and the others.

"Huh, so those are the young 'uns of your group," Goldmine noted as business as usual returned to the conference hall (mostly more eating and drinking). "Gotta say, they seem like an exciting bunch… save of course for that downer old man in the red coat."

"Aw, I don't see it like that at all," Bob noted with a smile. "In fact, it's almost like he's acting like the group's little dad."

"That's what you got out of that?" the skeptic leader of _Quatro Cerberus_ asked.

"Strange as it may sound, Bob does have a point," Makarov said, finally finding his voice as he wiped his face from the tears. "From what I can tell Natsu has given Ragna the nickname 'dad'… even it's mainly a spiteful gesture at this point."

"See?" Bob said, looking quite pleased with himself.

"That's proves nothing," Goldmine stubbornly denied.

"ALL RIGHT!" Makarov screamed, raising his glass high. "AGAINST ALL ODDS FAIRY TAIL WON'T HAVE ANY DAMAGE COMPLAINTS! I'M GOING TO DRINK LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW IN CELEBRATION!"

"You're still drinking... after all that booze you already downed because you were worried?"

"Oh Maki, you really _should_ take it easy…"

 _Later that Night_

Ragna said nothing as he rested on the cushioned window sill, looking up at the large and bright moon with his single good eye. Despite Lucy's best efforts (and Erza's naturally intimidating presence), there was only a single two bed suite for the group to rest in and that meant getting creative on where everyone was sleeping that night. By now everyone had already bathed and had fallen asleep save for him who couldn't quite shut his eye just yet.

Putting his hand out to the side, he used his _Requip_ magic once more and summoned Erigor's scythe… no, now it was _his_ scythe and that was the way it was going to stay until it broke or he found a sickle that suited him better. Try as he might to get rid of his past life, the _Grim Reaper_ element seemed to be stuck with him… but it certainly beat a certain someone calling him a pedo again.

' _This thing's a lot lighter than Aramasa was in this form,'_ Ragna thought to himself as he examined his new weapon. ' _That and… I'm not exactly a fan of the skull on it…'_ Even he had limits on how closely associated to death he was. Putting the weapon back into storage, he glanced to the resting places of his fellow teammates.

The room had been given a small sofa where Natsu was resting along with a small easy chair and ottoman set for Grey to catch his Z's. On Natsu's side, the Fire User was softly snoring with a small trail of spit drooling out of his mouth. Happy was sitting on one of the armrests and leaning back against Natsu's head as he slept and muttering out a new species of fish every few minutes. While Gray slept, a thin vapor seemed to be emerging from his mouth, almost fitting for an Ice user. Ragna figured this might have caused the temperature around him to drop significantly, but sure enough Gray's clothes had been piled off to the side as he slept.

Being the two girls of the group (and at Ragna's own insistence) Lucy and Erza had been given the two beds to rest in. The blonde _Celestial Wizard_ had summoned Plue and was snuggling with it beneath her sheets as she slept peacefully. There wasn't a lot to say about Erza… though Ragna did find it strange that she'd changed from her pajamas back into her regular armor in her sleep. Maybe she was dreaming about fighting or something? Ragna didn't know.

"These guys are a real handful," he muttered softly to himself as he struggled to get comfortable with the limited room he'd been given.

...Betraying his complaint with only the smallest of smiles.

 _ **Author's Note**_

 _ **Storm VII: KEPT THE PROMISE! OUT BY NEW YEARS AND OUT BY CHRISTMAS!**_

 _ **Happy: How surprising, you never finish a story when you say you're going to.**_

 _ **S: C'mon, you know I have a busy life outside of writing.**_

 _ **H: Actually, I didn't think you had a life outside of writing.**_

 _ **S: Ouch… Anyways, that's the Lullabye Arc. As you could probably expect, I'm not going to be covering that village filler episode from the anime (unless it's heavily requested).**_

 _ **H: The one where we-?**_

 _ **S: SPOILERS! ...Actually never mind; it's been out for a few years. Though there is something I should be telling you. Remember how I said I wanted to make this story more my own thing in last author's note?**_

 _ **H: Yeah, and you changed this Arc up quite a bit.**_

 _ **S: Well I'm going to be putting in some of my own personal (productive) filler in the story before the next Arc. I'm thinking two, three... four chapters maximum. Let me know in the reviews what you think a good amount would be.**_

 _ **H: ALL CHAPTERS WILL HAVE ME AS THEIR FOCUS!**_

 _ **S: You wish… Anyways, let's do these reviews.**_

 _ThePinkJirachi:_ Back I am.

 _Guest (1)_ : ...Lotta Siegrain hate here… Hmm, how to proceed.

 _Bloodedge_ : It's… something I've considered.

 _Guest (2)_ : Azure Grimoire might take a while. And Erza… welllll...

 _Sieg Warheidt_ : Definitely got plans for that, just gonna take a bit longer.

 _TheFreezerStreets_ : Sorry, but it didn't exactly go down like that.

 _GenieNight08_ : While I can appreciate being called out for story problems, I think you might want to listen to a few of the other reviews for the points I tried to make in this story.

 _KuKuKu KAW_ : Thanks for your support, and not to worry. I can take criticism.

 _Primus1661_ : Wendy… Well I won't have a problem of catching up to the canon series too quickly.

 _Lovnag_ : If you don't mind sending me a PM… what _juicy bits_ do you mean?

 _Wlyman2009_ : Haven't played Abyss so I can't compare, and dad Ragna seems to be getting popular.

 _Drakolf_ : Thank you for being patient.

 _The Uplanner_ : I only have a PS4, so you're safe for now.

 _Call-me-Writer_ : It's something that's happened in a few other stories, so there's a chance that could happen here.

 _Kayen1024_ : Considering the whole _Black Beast_ thing, it was an easy connection.

 _Shirosaki Kizuro_ : Not yet my friend, not yet…

 _Zeldawolffang_ : Hype!

 _Meijin Lightus_ : Thanks.

 _Vastolordmask_ : Considering that's how a few of my stories have already turned out, I'm probably going to stay away from that angle.

 _Azure Legacy_ : Thanks for the defence, you cover the main arguments I would have had.

 _Mercenary9814_ : That's what I try.

 _ **S: Phew, that's that!**_

 _ **H: Time to post! See you all soon!**_

 _ **Storm VII: CIAO!**_


	8. Survey

So... this story has become something of a sore point for a lot of you lately. There's nothing wrong for writing it per say, it just that a lot of my readers seem to have a problem with what I've done bringing Ragna in here without the use of his Azure Grimiore. It's been a bit of a big contention point with the story with even some of the most supportive readers wanting him to be restored to the status quo soon.

My original thinking behind the change was that Fairy Tail has a lot to offer in magic in that you can do almost anything with it given enough time. I figured that might work for giving Ragna a new unique moveset, but it seems that you don't care for that. Am I upset? Not at all, this was something I wanted to try out and it seems that I've heard from you all. Am I disappointed? Admittedly a little, but if my stories were without fault I wouldn't learn anything. (and they aren't, I'm always coming up with new ways to tell a story, what I tried to do when I started writing can honestly make me cringe at times)

Which brings us to what I'm going to do moving forward. I'm opening up a survey for my next move regarding this story. There's no poll, no form of a ballot; I just want to hear from you and your thoughts before I decide how I should take this story moving forward?

Should I...

A) Keep going with where it's headed?

B) Reboot the series and allow Ragna to keep his powers? (I've done something slightly similar before with another of my stories)

C) Drop this story?

I look forward to hearing from everyone. I'll give this about a week to allow the reviews to come in and I'll post my decision then. Take care.

Ciao.


	9. Image of Age

_**Well now… you've really made yourselves heard. Small spoilers for the upcoming chapters up ahead as I'm going to reveal some of my plans now, so skip to the non-bolded text if you want to get to a little bit of post chapter content.**_

 _ **Now more people are behind the Ragna keeping the powers I've had him earn in the story than I thought, but many also want to get back the abilities he's been known to have over time. To be honest, I was already planning to do that, but I can compromise and speed the process up a bit. Here's what I've got planned for the upcoming chapters.**_

 _ **So what we're having here is the first of one of my own filler Arcs. The timing might seem a little odd (in the Anime they had a different filler episode and I skipped that), but I promise that after this I'm going to be heading straight into the**_ _ **Demon Island**_ _**arc. For the next Arc I'm going to be focusing on the process needed for addressing and healing Ragna's detriments. End result he won't have his powers back yet (still way too early to have those in my opinion), but he'll at least have control over his arm and eye while starting to develop a few moves akin to those of his old techniques; think his regular moveset, but with a Fairy Tail twist.**_

 _ **Enjoy the chapter. I'll be making a small post chapter address after this, so stick around.**_

 _ **Episode 008: Image of Age**_

"Urhm… Morning already…?" the Grim Reaper muttered to himself as he slowly opened his single good eye and rose his back off of the grass hillside. It was two day after he and the other wizards had managed to take down the _Lullabye_ demon, defeat the Dark Guild of _Eisenwald_ , and save the guild masters, so Ragna had managed to sleep in his… usual location.

Since he didn't have a house or somewhere to stay (he was pretty low on Jewels at the moment), he'd actually taken to sleeping in the forest just outside of town. With the years he'd spent with traveling with his teacher Jubei, Ragna felt right at home camping out in the woods. He didn't even have that much to worry about from the monsters in the area. He'd been bothered by them his first night out here, but the few creatures that had worked up the courage to attack him had only made that mistake _once_ ; now they all knew better.

Giving a yawn and stretching the best that he could, the Reaper managed to get a couple of sore kricks out as he slowly rose to his feet. It was still plenty early as the sun had only started to rise off in the distance, but Ragna felt the need to get the day started if he was going to earn a decent amount of money by day's end.

' _I should probably think about building up from what little money I have so I can avoid going broke soon. If I head out on my own today on one of those high paying monster hunting jobs Erza told me about, I should get some pretty decent cash and maybe even get a better lay of the land.''_

It wasn't much longer before Ragna found himself in town, walking down the cobblestone streets as he made his way towards the _Fairy Tail_ guild. There weren't too many people out given as early as it was, most of them were just shopkeepers getting things ready for the day. Several of them were too busy setting up shop to bother with him, though a few gave him a friendly _good morning_ as he passed by. Back home where he was often labeled as a 'criminal' or 'terrorist' he'd have never gotten this kind of greeting (in fact _no_ greeting would have been largely preferable), but here he had no such baggage weighing him down and returned the gesture with a stoic nod of his own. Heading down one street, he paused in his walk as he watched a small _Magic Mobile_ pass him by.

' _Least I won't be riding on the roof anytime soon,'_ he thought with a smirk as he remembered the hell his last venture had put through. Ready to cross, he'd only managed to put a single foot on the road.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" a young voice shouted, right as Ragna had been about to cross the street. Turning his head he saw three young boys running towards him from about a block away. They were all in some sort of strange uniform with tiny scarves tied around their necks.

"Something wrong, kid?" Ragna asked once they'd made it his way, figuring it would be kind of a dick move just to ignore children outright.

"We're the Junior Scout Trainees of the _Fiore Army!_ " the lead one said as he held up a two finger salute. "Serve and protect!"

"Serve and protect!" the others behind him shouted, giving the same salute that he had.

' _So they're like boy scouts then, only they're trying to get into the army?_ ' Ragna thought to himself, a little confused by the process of events. "Well that's… great and all, but any reason why you decided to stop me?"

"We decided that you'd needed assistance crossing the street!" the second boy announced. "And as part of our requirements to achieve our next rank, we need to escort those in need across Magnolia's busy streets!"

"...One car passed by ten seconds ago; this is as far from a busy street as you could get," Ragna said, keeping his patience as he turned them down. "Besides, I don't need any help. I could easily jump the damn- darn street if I really needed to."

"B-But we still need to help you… i-ff we don't help escort ten elderly people across the street then there's no way that we'll be able to clear our requirement," the third told him, crocodile tears streaming down his face.

"Elderly…" Ragna growled under breath, trying to keep himself from making that kid _really_ cry. "...And what do they consider _elderly_?"

"Anyone over forty!" they shouted in unison.

' _...Okay, NO.'_

With his pride gravely wounded, the Reaper didn't give the children another passing glance as he started walking down the streets. Unfortunately for him, luck was not on his side as one of the kids then grabbed his arm to start guiding him while the other two stood on opposing sides, blowing their whistles at the non-existing traffic. As if to make his life a further hell, several of the shopkeepers from earlier were passing by as was the occasional young lady… Ragna knew they were watching him, he knew they were laughing, and he knew he was about to blow up at all of them.

"That was hell…" he muttered once the chaos had finally ended. As if to commemorate his suffering, he'd needed to sign a form saying that they'd guided him across the street, almost like he was agreeing that he was old… to protect himself _somewhat,_ he'd instead signed _Valkenhayn_ but the whole thing still rubbed him the wrong way. Now he wanted to get to the guild as quickly as he could… though he couldn't help but notice the pleasant smell that was coming from one of the cafes.

' _...I think after what I've gone through I can afford to treat myself a little,'_ Ragna figured. Even if he found his own cooking to be better and cheaper, that didn't mean he didn't occasionally feel the need to let someone cook for him. True he didn't have a lot of money to spend, but as long as his plan for completing a high paying job fell through, he could be a little generous on his breakfast plans.

After a good _Eggs Benedict_ breakfast along with sides of hashbrowns and bacon and a steaming mug of coffee to wash it down, the Grim Reaper was feeling pretty satisfied. In fact, any thoughts of being called old were already starting to leave him as the food set in.

"Finished with your meal sir?" a passing waitress asked with a bright smile on her face.

"Yeah, that was pretty good," he told her as she took the plate away and brought out his bill. Ragna took one good look at the total at the bottom before his face fell… It wasn't that he didn't have enough money, quite the opposite actually; compared to the prices listed on the menu, it felt like they were _undercharging_ him.

"Is something wrong sir?" she asked sweetly, a bright smile on her face.

' _I could just take the win for once,'_ Ragna thought to himself darkly… though his history of (unintentional) dine and dashing made it hard to stomach this. Not wanting to cause a scene, he decided he'd be honest. "Pretty sure you undercharged me, bill's a lot lower than it was supposed to be."

"Oh sir, that's so kind of you to be honest like that," she said to him, smiling brightly… the waitress's smile certainly wasn't hard on his working eye, so Ragna could at least feel better that he was doing the right thing here. "But I think you forget to account for the _early bird_ _special_."

"... _Early bird special_?" Ragna asked, a terrible feeling starting to hit his gut and he was pretty sure it wasn't the eggs he'd just eaten.

"Yes sir, since you've been eating with us so early and you're of a qualifying age, you get a nice discount on your food," she explained cheerfully. Dread showing itself on Ragna's face, he nervously glanced around the restaurant only to become aware of the several seniors that were dining here as well.

"And… what's the qualifying age?" he asked, knowing full well he was going to hate the answer.

"Just fifty or older," the waitress told him cheerfully as Ragna felt several knives being stabbed into his entire body from several angles and twisted for good measure. Without another word he paid what he owed, rose from his chair, and left without a passing glance. ' _What's with that guy? First he thinks he's not paying enough, then he doesn't even thank me after I made sure he got his discount?'_

"This… day… is… hell…" Ragna muttered as he continued making his way to the guild walking on the bridge that stood over the river that ran through town. "What is it with people thinking that I'm some old man? Even with my eye and arm like this I can't look _that_ old!"

"Step right up! Step right up!" shouted a corner salesman as he tried to push the wares he had set out on a small wooden stand. A few people were standing around such confection, even if the tuxedo wearing top-hatted wearing salesman could be described as… _dodgy_ at best. On his stand there were several skin cream containers, all with an odd top hat symbol on top of it. "I tell you ladies and gents, this is the stuff you'll be wanting right here and now. Got acne that won't go away no matter what you try? Got that one mole that keep popping up? Got that beauty mark you always wanted, but it's too close to your nose? Then try our top of the line _Top Hattin' Beauty Cream_ , up for sale for both men and women!"

' _So now we've got a 'music man' in town? Yare yare…'_ the Reaper thought to himself with a sigh as he looked to the group of people, some of which actually seemed to be taking the stuff this guy was claiming quite seriously. ' _...Their loss.'_

"With our own patented spells worked into the cream and rare ingredients gathered from every side of Fiore, this cream does SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU'D THINK IT WOULD!" the man continued, spouting more nonsense as he took one of the canisters and held it up high like it was a highly prized piece of art. "When you apply it to the skin, you start to give off a shine that your friends will find positively blinding, so it works as perfect makeup tool and its scent is just divine!"

Feeling done with the crap he found this salesman was giving, the Reaper gave an audible groan that was heard by everyone as he turned to walk away. It was people like this that would make life hard for any passing by sales person; these were the skeptic minds that would always make those ready to purchase the product to give it a second look with a more collected mind, but if the seller managed to win _that_ person over though...

"Hold on a second!" the salesperson called as he leaped over the crowd landing right in front of Ragna. The Reaper gave a low growl, making it clear that this man was making a mistake in stopping him, but this guy was a whole new level of dense (even compared to Bang Shishigami). "My good man! You don't know what you're missing out on! This little product could change your life!"

"And stopping me could end yours," Ragna threatened as he rudely shoved his way forward, pushing the guy off to the side.

"But you don't understand! This could make you look twenty- NO! _THIRTY_ YEARS YOUNGER! THIS COULD PUT YOU IN YOUR THIRTIES!"

... _That_ made Ragna stop in his tracks. This was the third time that morning that he'd called old to some degree, and he'd barely been up for an hour. Turning around to face the salesperson, they didn't even seem to notice the deathly stigma around his person as his face was masked under the shade his hair cast, making him look all the more threatening.

"Here! I'll even give you a free sample of our product!" the man said as he began to screw the cap off of the top. "Not only will this help in every way I stated before, it'll even help to eliminate all signs of fatigue from a late night and even recolor any dark circles under your eyes. And don't get me _started_ on how well this stuff works as an aging cream on wrink-"

 _ **BOOM!**_

With sheer rage powering his attack, Ragna struck the salesperson with the force of an artillery cannon. A large welt had already formed on the idiot's face as he flew through the air, screaming in his rapid rise and even quicker decent. Everyone in the crowd could easily see the massive splash as the salesman landed into the city's watery channel. The Grim and Annoyed Reaper continued to the _Fairy Tail_ guild, a top hat slowly floating to the ground behind him.

 _Fairy Tail Guild_

Once Ragna had _finally_ made his way into the guild, he was surprised to see that Mira was the only one there beside him… or he would've been surprised if he wasn't still consumed by his overflowing rage. Even Mira's bright smile did nothing to help Ragna's attitude as he headed over to the bar and moodily took a seat.

"I wasn't expecting to see you this early," Mira said to him, trying to keep a pleasant smile on her face as she knew how contagious her own good mood could be. Ragna only gave a non-committed grunt in response. "Can I get you something?"

"...A drink; I need a large beer or something strong," he muttered leaving the fellow wizard to show surprise as she knew that Ragna had always shown he wasn't a heavy drinker in the slightest.

"If you say so, but you're usually the second person to call anyone out on drinking too early in the day, just behind Erza," Mira said as she began pouring the Reaper's drink. "I think I've seen that look on people's faces before; did you just have to go through a hard break up?"

"You're giving me too much credit," Ragna grumbled as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his good hand, wincing harshly as he thought back on all of the rapid-fire hell he'd been through since just waking up. "Mira… can I… ask you something?"

"Is this a confession?" she asked, leaving Ragna to scowl at her before noticing that her bright smile still hadn't faded. "Or am I giving myself too much credit?" Her voice had a sweet giggle to it as she set a large glass mug in front of her brooding customer.

"...Funny," the Reaper said as he took a long sip of his beer, the corner of his mouth giving the slightest upward twitch. "Seriously though, I kinda need to hear it from you."

"I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help you, but I'm always ready to listen," Mira told him in a caring tone, almost as a mother would. Even if this (mixed with the drink) put Ragna slightly more at ease, he couldn't help but feel hesitant in voicing his concerns aloud.

"Do… Do I look... _old_ to you?"

Mira… didn't answer, only continuing to smile brightly at Ragna like she hadn't hadn't heard him. But the Reaper knew; he could see how strained her smile was starting to become and the few beads of sweat that had started to form. His face falling, he slumped forward and planted his face on the top of the bar and let out a loud muffled groan.

"I'm sorry… that's probably not the response you wanted," Mira apologized, trying to continue to smile even though Ragna's face was still buried. "Can I ask where this question is coming from?"

"It's just… it's been coming up a lot more lately for some reason," Ragna admitted as he rose his head slightly, mostly just so he could take another long swig of his drink. Wincing slightly at the alcohol, he gave a long sigh. "First I thought that it was just going to be some teasing from Natsu and Happy, but as we've gone on it's been coming up more and more."

"But… haven't they stopped calling you old at least?" Mira asked happily. "That's a little progress for you at least, right?"

"Why do you think I started to let them call me _dad_?" he muttered, effectively killing Mira's point. "Honestly… Erza thought I was old, that bastard Erigor thought I was old-"

"I'm sorry, you're talking about Erigor the Reaper?" Mira interrupted with surprise, having heard the name once or twice.

"The same, though I think I showed I was the better Reaper after I beat his ass and took his scythe," Ragna said with a cocky smirk before his expression turned dour once more. "But then there was this morning… oh god this morning..." He groaned. "Normally I wouldn't care what anyone would say about me, but I'm getting tired of being dicked over time and again because of my looks. This might not be anything too new for me, but I'm getting close to losing it."

"That certainly sounds… challenging," Mira admitted before considering something. "Now that I think about it… how old _are you?_ " Ragna gave her a strange expression. "I'm just thinking, you don't look much different than my brother _Elfman_ , but everyone knows how old he is because he's been a part of this guild since we were kids. Maybe people won't think you're old if they knew your actual age."

"Huh, you actually have a good point," the Reaper had to admit, figuring this might give him the out he needed. "Alright then, I'm _**CARNAGE SCISSORS**_."

"...I'm sorry?" Mira asked, her smiling face gone and replaced with a ghostly stare at the Reaper's face.

"...I said I was _**BLOOD KAIN**_."

' _...There's no way,'_ Mira thought to herself as she stared at Ragna in terror. ' _Is he really still THAT young?'_

"Your silence is speaking volume right now," the Reaper muttered, bringing Mira back to the present. She tried to offer an apology, but Ragna was already rising to his feet as he pulled out a few of his last remaining Jewels to pay off the drink he'd just gotten. Heading to the request board, he grabbed one of the two monster hunting quests available and started walking off in an even deeper slump, leaving a guilty Mira standing behind the front desk. "Honestly, these people…"

 _Later_

"I told you NO!" Lucy shouted, her cries loud enough to be heard throughout the guild.

"Come on, it's a high paying job and we've taken these guys down before," Natsu explained as he held up their potential next job. "I don't know what your big deal is Loony."

"It's Lucy and I'm not going on another job with _VULCANS_!" she shouted loudly at the pink haired wizard in front of her. "I swear, if it's not pervy old men, it's dirty apes that want to kidnap me!"

"But you make such good bait!" Happy told her proudly.

"Don't say that like it's a compliment!" the blond shouted. "If Ragna was here, you know he'd be taking my side!"

"Only 'cause he spoils you," Natsu grumbled as put the job back on the board and took a looked for another.

"What are you doing?" Erza demanded as she walked up to the board, all three of them practically jumping at the unexpected sight of her scowl.

"Trying to find a new job…" Lucy said nervously. "But Natsu can't pick out a good one…"

"I see…" Erza contemplated before turning to the _Fire Dragon Slayer_. "Natsu?"

"I… just think we can try tackling some of the harder jobs," he told the armored wizard, trying not to get her to blow up at him. "After all, those jobs do pay well…"

"Still, I think you should consider your partner's concerns before making a decision like this on your own," Erza told him, her demeanor making it clear this wasn't a suggestion; it was an _order_. Lucy gave a quick sigh of relief as she realized she was in the clear. "And Lucy?"

"Eep!"

" _You_ should expect to tackle the harder jobs, even if they fall outside your comfort zone. As a wizard it's the easiest way to improve your magic and tactics; while taking only easy jobs runs the risk of you growing comfortable and not reaching for your full potential. You're a member of _Fairy Tail_ ; you can always strive for better."

"It's not that I have a problem with hard work…" Lucy told her, trying not to seem like she was whining to Erza. "Perverts on the other hand…"

"Ah… in that case I'd simply take them down while they try and leer at you," Erza suggested before slamming a fist into her open palm so hard that it sent out a small shockwave. "A simple punch to their groin and they'll cumple before you without much of a fight."

"...I'll keep that in mind," Lucy said, cringing at the bluntness of Erza's advice. While the two wizards (and Happy) went back to picking their job, Erza made her way to the front desk where Mira was busy pouring drinks and making food for everyone.

"No help from Ragna today?" she asked as she brought enough Jewels out to buy a slice of her usual strawberry cake.

"He… left earlier on a job," Mira told her, an unusual sadness to her voice. Erza took note of this and (after serving herself a slice of cake of course) leaned in and expected an explanation. "You... thought he was old, didn't you?"

"I remember calling him that when we first met, also Natsu and Lucy have already given him the _dad_ nickname," Erza told her. "Why? Is there a problem with that?"

"I just think that maybe we can be a little nicer to him about his age; he's actually not quite as old as we all think."

"He's not? How can you tell?"

"Because he brought it up earlier to me… as a sort of problem," Mira said before leaning in and whispering something that was too low for anyone else to hear.

"HOW YOUNG!?" came a rather rare outburst from Erza, attracting concerned gazes from everyone in the guild. Moving in closer to Mira, they continued their conversation in whispers. "And… do you believe him?"

"Seems like an oddly specific number, doesn't it?" she said, before sighing. "Honestly, it's no wonder that he's starting to get angry, not with everyone thinking he's so much older than he actually is…"

"...Now that I think about it, he had said something about going on a job to let all of his aggression off," Erza considered to herself as she thought back to her train trip. "And I'm fairly certain that was before his age was brought up."

 _Meanwhile_

"Tch, I thought the job posting said that I was only supposed to handle two of these things," Ragna muttered to himself as he swung his scythe in a massive arc before him, dispelling a massive column of flame that had been shot his way. Twirling the weapon before him in a protective circle, he managed to deflect a barrage of sharp icicles. Quickly switching from a scythe to his massive blade, Ragna made a strong slash forward, cleaving through a wave of earth that had threatened to flatten him before digging his feet into the ground and managing to avoid being blasted into the air by a powerful torrent of wind before he switched back to his scythe and made a final rapid series of swing in the air to block the three lightning bolts that descended from a seemingly clear blue sky. "...And I'm pretty damn certain it never brought up magic."

There were five wolves circling Ragna with feral snarls as they looked for an opening to attack with their predatory instincts. Each of these wolves were around 10 feet long and had different builds depending on their elemental attribute. The wolf with the Fire element was the most well rounded between size and sleekness, flames escaping its maw with every breath and it's fur glowing red with heat . The Ice wolf had obviously the sharpest fur of the bunch, though it was slightly smaller than the fire wolf it's pale white coat was as sharp as razors and colder than any northern ice. The Lightning wolf was a touch on the larger side and it's puffed out fur gave off powerful spark of electricity, like lightning in a storm cloud. The Earth wolf was the heaviest of the bunch, with claws and fangs that looked like they were carved from rock and a hardened coat that looked like it had bit rock sprouting out of it. As a complete opposite was the Wind wolf; lean, light, and its fur constantly flowing like it was in a breeze even when it wasn't moving.

(Cue _**No More Heroes**_ _Steel Python_ )

"No use bitching about it," Ragna said as he flicked and wrist and turned his scythe into a deadly propeller blade in front of him, kicking up powerful winds around him in a show of force before he caught the weapon and readied himself. "Time to go to work."

Not intimidated, the earth wolf gave a strong growl as it stomped a heavy paw on the ground and created a strong tremor around the Reaper. Ragna had to fight hard to avoid a heavy stun from the attack as the Ice wolf went in for its attack. Taking a deep breath in, the canine expelled a single giant icicle as a projectile at its prey, leaving Ragna again on the defensive as he cleaved the attack in half with his sickle. Both attacks proved to be a distraction as the Wind wolf charged at him using its naturally high agility. Swinging his scythe in front of him, he managed to cause the wolf to change directions but it was so agile that it could easily evade the attack and lunge from his side. Giving a sudden kick to the bottom of the wolf's jaw sent the beast into the air. Quickly bringing his scythe down, the Reaper tried to score some actual damage on his opponent, but wolf actually managed to dodge the attack as it took control of the winds in to avoid the attack in midair and retreat. Making matters worse, Ragna wasn't able to turn around in time to counter the lightning wolf's attack and got grazed in the back by a few powerful bolts of lightning.

Giving a grunt as he tanked the hit, Ragna knew that relying solely on his weapons wasn't going to get him anywhere here. These things were too well coordinated to just go charging in head first; he had to figure some way to maneuver them. Starting with a more basic approach, he waited for the wolves to make their move so that he could build on their own attacks. This time the Wind wolf led the attack and used its speed once more to try and disorient him. This time Ragna wasn't falling for it and only stood ready leaping back to avoid both the Wind wolf's lunge along with the Lightning wolf's as they both tried to catch him in a deadly pincer attack. From the back lines the Earth wolf attempted to impale Ragna with same sharp stalagmite attack, but a leap high into the air put him just out of range.

With its prey in the air, the Lightning wolf unleashed another series of lightning from its maw. Ragna's only response to counter was to throw his scythe as hard as he could, letting the weapon spiral in the air right towards the wolf and eating up the voltage. This forced the wolf to dodge as the pointed blade impaled itself in the ground it had been standing. Channeling his power into his now free hand, Ragna unleashed a swarm of firebolts and sent them towards the Ice wolf, hoping to play the difference of elements to his favor. The plan could have worked and brought the enemy out of the fight, had the Fire wolf not charged in and taken the attack in its place. Not only did this reveal a new strength in the pack's teamwork, but absorbing the attack also seemed to strengthen the Fire Wolf, as evident by the new glowing surge in its flame covered fur.

' _Not good,'_ Ragna thought to himself as he landed on the ground, quickly bringing out his _Gilgamesh Blade_ to serve as his new weapon.

Standing ready, he watched as the Fire Wolf began to growl as the flames around it grew even brighter, indicating that it was charging a powerful attack. Ragna knew enough that he needed to put a stop to that right the hell now, but down a scythe and with four other wolves surrounding him he wasn't exactly looking at a lot of options.

' _Screw it.'_

Throwing caution to the wind like he was usually forced to do, Ragna charged headfirst towards the creatures. When Ice wolf again sent out a rapid volley of icicles, Ragna was forced to respond by slashing his sword as fast as he could to cut through the fully of attacks. The Lightning wolf then charged at him with its body coated in electricity, but Ragna guarded against the ram before shoving the monster off to the side and continuing to rush forward. Trying to blow the Reaper away or at least halt his progress, the Wind wolf used its breath attack and blasted Ragna with a column of deadly winds. Too dedicated to his attack and too short on time to try anything fancy, Ragna charged headlong through the attack trying his best to brush of the strain the deadly wind was causing to his body. With a roar, he broke through the winds and leaped right above the Fire wolf ready to bring his blade down.

The earth wolf's sudden charge seemed to be the last line of defense as it leaped up at Ragna. The Reaper tried to knock the wolf out of the way, but as the monsters teeth caught onto his sword, Ragna was forced to the ground mere feet from his target.

"Get off dammit!" he shouted as he tried to tear blade out of his maw (maybe even take the monster with it). Being made of stone, the Wolf wasn't moving and Ragna could only suspect that it was using magic to increase his weight and keep him held in place. It was clear the Earth wolf had no intention of moving, satisfied with its own endurance to be able to take the heavy fire attack. Meanwhile the Fire wolf had finally finished charging and inhaled to breath its final attack.

Working desperately fast, Ragna gave up his sword and allowed the Earth wolf to continue holding it in its maw. Bringing out the Frying Pan he'd earned from the Vanish Brothers, he braced the absurd weapon in front of him to give him whatever protection it could as the wolf finally expelled its massive flames in a single focused blast. The Reaper braced himself for a painful impact… only to not feel any change.

"What the-?" Peeking out from behind the Frying Pan, he saw that it had somehow caught the fire magic inside of it, an orb of titanic fire energy glowing at its center. He noted that even the wolves seemed to be shocked by this development as they made no sound while staring wide eyed at the orb in front of him. Smirking harshly to himself before letting out a load roar, he swung the mass of fire energy over his head before bringing it to the ground and created an explosion that sent almost all of the wolves flying.

The final wolf (the Fire one, of course) hadn't taken much damage from the fire attack, but the sheer force of the explosion blasted it back a good distance. A mix of the sheer force of fire magic that it had absorbed combined with the rage of its beaten pack, the wolf charged headfirst at the Reaper who swung his final weapon to meet the attack. The impact of the collision was enough to send the Frying Pan out of Ragna's hands, though it seemed that he'd at least dealt some damage to the Fire Wolf. Baring its fangs, the wolf leaped into the air while coated in fire to finish off its unarmed prey. Ragna went to meet the attack with a haymaker, so focused on the battle that he didn't even notice the lightning magic he was coating his left arm in. Smashing his fist and sending the wolf flying, the canine gave a high pitched shriek as it sailed off into the distance.

(End theme)

Ragna gave a lengthy sigh of relief as he watched the remaining wolves run off, their tails quite literally between their legs as they gave high pitched yelps of defeat. He considered following after them… but realized that it wouldn't make much sense. The job had specifically told him to drive the monsters off and he'd clearly done that, plus there was even less of a reason to give chase since there were three more wolves than he'd thought he needed to fight off. His prized jacket looked like it had just gone through a bit of abuse and his wounds were going to take some time to heal completely. Everything pointed to him calling it quits here, reclaiming his weapons, and grabbing his reward… the one he deserved anyways.

 _Client's Estate_

Had Ragna not been in such a huff that morning he might've paid more attention to who was offering the reward on the wolves he'd just beaten. If he had he might've gotten into the job with a bit more speculation, but now it was starting to bite him hard in the ass. When he'd first come in off the train he'd found his employer lived at a large estate that was just as gaudy as Duke Everlue's manor. The lady that ran this place hadn't even come out to meet him, merely her servants had confirmed he was here for the job, knew where the wolves could be found, and sent him on his way, not even testing that he was a wizard. At first Ragna didn't have a problem with this impersonal arrangement, in fact he was happy that he wouldn't have to meet some noble and waste his time, but that was before he'd considered that she would rip him off.

Her entourage of butlers were none too happy at his insistence that he deserved to be properly compensated, and were even further dismissive when he demanded to meet their boss in person. After much debate and arguing, they eventually agreed to ask their master, though Ragna was already put in a horrid mood with all of the bull he'd been forced through that day. As if he hadn't suffered enough, he was told that the Lady in charge had other "more important" matters to attend to, so he'd have to wait, though a stern look from his scowling eyes made it clear that he wanted to be out of here. A half hour of pointless reading and waiting later, Ragna was summoned by the lady for an audience… and his ire only continued to grow.

Even though he'd been specifically called in, she wasn't sitting like she was expecting him; much more like she was enjoying her tea time and he just happened to be there as well. Hers was the only seat at the tea table, making it quite clear that he wasn't going to be invited to join her, not that he would have but the fact that they didn't even extend the most basic of courtesies was grating on his nerves.

' _Dammit, now I'm actually starting to miss that upstart Rabbit, even including all of the times she kidnapped me,'_ Ragna thought to himself, giving a low sigh as he remembered his old ally. Looking at his employer as she took another long sip of her tea, he decided he'd had enough. "Oi, I'm not getting any younger over here."

"I'll say," she returned with a snap, leaving Ragna to realize he should have worded that better. The woman in him was slim and tall, roughly around his height if just a touch shorter. She had long and curly blonde hair that covered right eye. She was wearing a purple victorian style dress that had plenty of frills on it, yet her top corset looked uncomfortably tight on her thin body. "I suppose I might've needed your help to take care a… minor _annoyance_ , but I certainly wished that whoever decided to take my posting would be easier on the eyes. A better attitude wouldn't hurt either."

"Oh, _I'm sorry_. I can't help the way I act, just like you can't stand being a stuck up bitch." Ragna saw the small twitch of annoyance in her eyes at his unsubtle sarcasm, along with the dirty looks he was getting from the butlers. Small as it was, he still took that as a win in his favor. "Your posting didn't have all of the details; last I checked I was supposed to fight off two dire wolves not five… and do Dire Wolves even have all of that different element crap?"

"Of course they don't, that would make them _Elemental Wolves_ you dolt," she told him, waving him off. Ragna wasn't amused and only continued to glower at her. He didn't like that she was starting to smile again. "So I suppose what you're trying to tell me… is that you _weren't_ able to complete the job."

"Oh, you've got to be shittin' on me," the Reaper groaned.

"The job I posted was for you to chase off the _Dire Wolves_ ; and now that you've forced yourself before me, you have the gall to demand an outrageous payment on a job that I never even requested. You're quite full of yourself, and I don't even have a proof that you've done any of those fantastic claims of yours. Someone like you would be able to take down five _Elemental Wolves_ at once, such a deluded fool…"

"Lady, I was in a bad mood before I even got here. When I had to fight through those damn things I was pissed off. Now you're telling me that you won't pay after I did the damn job you should've posted!?" Ragna was shouting in rage now, not bothering to hold back his anger after the shitty day he was having.

"Cute that you think your opinion matters," she said with a haughty laugh. "You low ranking backwater guilds always get so uppity with costs since you can't even provide for yourselves, when you should be grateful that people bother trusting you with these jobs in the first place."

"...What was that about a low ranking guild?" the Reaper demanded, his tone and voice on the subject making him sound eerily similar to Natsu.

"Of course you'd have to belong to a guild like that," the lady told him as her servants all gave poorly hidden laughs at Ragna's expense. "After all, what self respecting guild would accept a crippled… old… man…?"

She had trouble finishing her sentence as Raagna began told radiate pure magical energy. Her servants began to move quickly to step in, but even they seemed to falter as they caught a glimpse of Ragna's power… and the _Fairy Tale_ symbol shining over his dead eye.

"A guild that has a reputation of going _overboard_."

 _Meanwhile -Foire Trainline-_

"Jeeze these cabins are so stuffy," Grey Fullbuster moaned to himself as he sat stretched out in the car room. With the windows down, the hallway door cracked open ever so slightly, and even a refrigeration spell to act as a makeshift fan, his natural aptitude with ice still left him uncomfortable. Reaching up to his collar, he made to undo just a few of his shirt buttons to air himself out.

"If that shirt comes off you're walking back to the guild," the ever present no nonsense attitude of Erza cut in, leading Gray to stiffen and halt his unusual habit (this time anyways). Putting his hands into his pockets, he tried to focus on the cool air he was currently getting. "It's nice to see you're taking the effort to cull that habit of yours, but I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't here you'd have already been in your boxers when you boarded the train."

"I…" Grey began trying to come up with a retort, though he knew Erza always had a knack for seeing through him. "Never mind. I might be a little late in asking this, but you mind telling me why you asked to team up out of the blue?"

"I just wanted to see how far you've come, it's been a while since I last got to see you in action and that fight against the _Lullabye_ demon wasn't a good judge of our strength."

"Yeah, once all of us started to go all out on the thing, it was clear it wasn't going to last long," Gray said, thinking back to that fight and a similar one before it. ' _I wish things could've been that easy the other time...'_ Shaking bitter memories out of his head, he put his focus back on the present. "So? How did I do?"

"Very well; your form has improved by leaps and bounds since I last saw you and your ingenuity is reaching new heights; stay on this path and you could be considered for the next S rank trials."

"You're serious?"Gray asked in surprise. Praise like this from Erza was rare at the best of times, but the scarlet haired wizard's tone made it clear that she was being genuine. Though as he complexion became serious once more, it was clear she had more to say.

"That being said, if you let yourself become lax now you'll never be able to amount to your true potential. Now that I've given you the encouragement I expect you to work twice, no thrice as hard as you were before."

"O...kay," Grey responded nervously, glancing out the window so that he didn't have to look directly at the older woman's menacing scowl. Passing fields were covered in the golden glow of the setting sun as it began to fall behind the mountain range. Night would fall soon enough, but Grey and Erza would be back in the guild long before then. Grey observations on the scenery were halted as he saw a small smirk on Erza's face, its presence and oddity since she'd been acting so serious before. "What's with the smile?"

"Hmmm... I honestly don't know," she admitted, pondering over her sudden shift. "If I had to guess, I feel like I should be a little annoyed at something." Instantly Grey gave a light sweat; being in the same room with even a slightly annoyed Erza Scarlet was a death sentence. "But instead… I somehow feel a little proud."

 _That Night -Magnolia-_

' _God dammit,'_ Ragna swore in his mind for the upteenth time that day. ' _With all the trouble I had to go through cause of them I should've taken out more than half that stupid mansion… if I hadn't held back on that blast I could've totaled the whole thing in an instant.'_ The Reaper grimaced harshly, at least as harshly as he was able to with a single functioning eye. ' _And then there's the fact that the train was late by two hours and riding it both ways just cleaned me out of any Jewels I had left…'_ Shaking his head, he continued to walk through the quiet city with the bright half moon shining down from the star lit sky. ' _This mess would be hilarious if I wasn't the wasn't the victim.'_

Needless to say, Ragna hadn't had a day _this_ bad in quite a while. Back in his own world it sometimes felt that there were entire days just dedicated to dicking him around and this felt almost as bad as some of those. Sure he didn't have to run from a fight with Hakumen or endure some of Rachel's pointless games, but he almost would have preferred those to the treatment he'd been getting.

' _No excuse to start acting so gloomy I guess,'_ he figured as he passed by the kids from earlier that morning, still hard at work even this late as the guided an actual eldery man across the street. ' _I guess this isn't too different than that job hunt I had to go on with Bullet; there are just going to be days like this no matter where you end up goin'... All that matters is you don't quit with it.'_

The Reaper might've been able to manage a small smirk then and there if it hadn't been for the painful growl that emitted from his stomach. On top of everything else, now he was starving since he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast that morning. While this would be far from the first night he'd have to go to sleep late, after the day he had the Reaper felt like he was earned some food for all of his trouble. Aside for a club or bar in town there wouldn't be too many places open to serve food and neither of those options were all that appealing since he didn't have any cash to work with and didn't want a repeat of Dine-and-Dashing with Tao. That left the guild… but it felt wrong to be stealing food from the place that had given him a really good chance at turning his life around.

' _It wouldn't really be stealing though, I've worked with the food enough that I'm practically working there as a cook… 'sides, soon as get some actual cash to work with I'll pay them back.'_ Knowing that self promise would have to do for now if he was going to get some decent sleep, Ragna made his way towards the _Fairy Tail_ guild. The door wasn't locked when he got there, meaning the place was still open… but there was only one person inside at the moment.

"You made it," Mirajane said with a smile as she sat behind the bar. There seemed to be a warm meat filled pie sitting right in front of her along with a small dining set to enjoy it with. "Welcome back! I had a feeling you'd be stopping by late so I got this ready for you."

"I…" Ragna had stumble with his words; he sure as hell hadn't expected a reception this warm. Especially with everything going in the wrong direction today. In the end, he really didn't have that much to say. "...Thanks."

"No need to thank me, I just hope you enjoy the pie. It's a bit of an experiment so you're the first person to try it," she told him excitedly.

"And you've been up keeping it warm for me this whole night? You didn't have to go and-"

 _Growl_.

Ragna couldn't continue as his stomach continued to betray him. Mira only continued to smile at him, though Ragna suspected that part of her reason for smiling was that he was continuing to show how transparent he really was. Giving an almost irritated smirk to the bartender, he took a seat and started to cut into the dinner pie.

"So… how did your fourth job go today?" Mira asked as she continued to scrub down plates and mugs that had been used during the day.

"...Wasn't this only my second? I didn't think that job with Erza counted."

"In my mind it does, and besides you also had to go on that job to get into the guild in the first place."

"You've been keeping count then," Ragna decided with a hint of snark before tasting his dinner. The gravy inside of the pie was thick, but also tasted like there had been a drop of cream added to it. The meat (some type of fowl) was cut into nice and hearty pieces, but it was perfectly tenderised and came apart with the lightest of bites. There was a good assortment of fully cooked vegetables inside, and the whole thing was held together by a doughy pie crust. This was a good meal; even better than that he'd had this morning. "Holy crap, you're saying that this is your first try?"

"Nope, I've experimented with something like this before but I changed a few of the spices I used on the gravy and cooked the meat a little longer. I take it this is a hit?" Ragna had eagerly gone for a second bite of the pie, so with a full mouth the only response he could give was an eager nod. "I'm happy to hear you say that; once I make plans to adjust our kitchen's stock I'll have to add it to the menu so that we can boost our sales." The word _sales_ didn't quite sit well with Ragna as he paused his chewing before hollowly swallowing the food. "What's wrong?"

"Listen, this is great and all but…" Ragna tried to say before setting his fork down and gripping his forehead with his good hand. "Let's just put it that my day went from bad to worse and I don't have the cash to pay you back right now."

"Why do think I had this ready for when you came?" Mira asked him rhetorically as she filled a tankard of beer and set it in front of Ragna, much to the Reaper's surprise. "I sort of had a feeling."

"...I'm starting to wonder why everyone's scared of Erza when you can read people like a book," Ragna told her, leaving Mira to giggle as he went for a swig of his beer.

"I guess I just have a way of understanding most people," she told him casually as she leaned in towards Ragna so he had no choice but to look at her. "So… how exactly did this job of yours go?"

"In a nutshell everything that could go wrong ended up going wrong; first the job I got hired for turns out to be a lot tougher than it was supposed to be, then when I tried to get reasonable compensation they threatened to not pay me at all, they insult call me an old man from this backwater guild..." Mira sadly nodded at that last one, realizing that Ragna being called old was starting to become a norm. "And then… I acted like a _Fairy Tail_ wizard."

"You blew up their estate."

" _Half_ the estate."

"Oh, so you can show self control."

"You're mocking me."

"No, I'm honestly not."

"Yeah right," Ragna muttered back, shaking his head as he went for another bite of his pie. "Do me a favor and don't tell Erza about this one, yeah? I get the feeling I'd be in for a lecture and I'm not sure I want to be on the receiving end of one of those right now."

"If your client refused to pay, I think that's on them and not you," Mira told him, looking at Ragna sadly. "But thanks to that you're broke? How are you going to pay for rent?"

"You mean for the house I don't even have right now?" Ragna said with a chuckle before taking a long drink, appreciating that this was one of the few worries he wouldn't have today. The disapproving glance he was getting from Mira made it clear that she didn't share his attitude. "It ain't that big of a deal…"

"I think you should be more worried about Lucy than Erza; she's not going to be happy that you don't even have a place to spend the night," she told him with a soft sigh. "We have a few spare beds in the back that you can use until you find a place to call your own, but I'd stay out of the woods for now if you want to keep your team from worrying."

"Who's the one that keeps getting called dad here? Pretty sure I'm supposed to be worrying about them and not the other way around," Ragna shot back before taking another bite out of the pie.

"I'm just saying that maybe you need someone to keep an eye on- EEP!" Mira quickly covered her mouth with both of her hands, realizing that what she was saying was insensitive to someone that had already been thoroughly mocked that day. The Reaper himself didn't seem to care to care about her words and only took another long sip of his beer as he watched the barmaid try not to make her situation worse for herself. Finishing his drink, he shot her a snarky smirk.

"Don't worry about it, it's actually not that big of a deal to me," he explained, for now just glad that he wasn't going to be scolded any further with the subject change. "I mean it's not like the damn thing's gone for good… probably."

"It's not?" Mira asked as she leaned in to get a closer look at Ragna's closed eye. True it didn't look like it had any scarring over it, but the eyelid hadn't moved at all in all of the time she'd seen it… not that she was the type to stare. "What's really wrong with it then?"

"Long story short, it's just paralyzed. This is far from the first time it's happened to me so I've already learned to cope with the handicap," Ragna explained nonchalantly. "The only difference is those other times the damage was temporary, but I can't let it heal the usual way and expect it to start working again out of nowhere."

"Paralyzed… Does that mean your arm's the same way?" Mira asked. Ragna only gave her a modest shrug. "If it's not too much trouble, do you think I could see it? Your eye I mean."

"Seems kinda sudden. Why?"

"I'm just curious I guess; I kind of want to see what you'd look like with both of your eyes actually working," Mira said before waving a hand in front of him. "Unless it makes you uncomfortable, then I can drop it here and we can pretend it never came up in the first place."

"It's the way I used to look; nothing too uncomfortable about that," Ragna told her before reaching up for his eyelid with his good hand. "Gotta warn you it might look a little disturbing. If it hasn't seen the light of day in a while it's probably going to have a weird shape and color to it and there's no guarantee it'll be facing the right way."

Mira didn't seem to have her mind changed by his words, so Ragna decided he'd indulge her. Reaching up to his right eye, he carefully lifted up his eyelids and was only left to wonder what Mira was seeing right now. She wasn't shying away, so obviously it wasn't all bad. Truth was the only thing that was shocking to Mira in how good of a condition his eye had been left in throughout his paralysis. It didn't look at all dried up and his iris was still the right size and shape compared to its partner. She wondered about the red iris compared to his other green, but all in all it looked like a perfect reflection to his other eye and was even looking straight ahead. Taking her focus away from just Ragna's eye, she looked to his face as a whole and… paused.

"...What's wrong? See something you like?" Ragna asked with a snarky quip as Mira stared at him. In his mind he admitted there was something of a flirty undertone with his quip, but Mira wasn't blushing. In fact, her face and eyes were so still the Reaper wasn't sure she'd even heard him in the first place. "Uh… Mira?"

"I… think I might've figured it out... your problem." Ragna gave her a weird look as he tried to ponder over her veiled words, finally coming to their meaning after a long moment of focused thought. His scowl made it clear that he didn't like what she was implying.

"So you're telling me… the whole reason that everyone treats me like crap… why everyone thinks I'm so much older than I actually am… and why I got mistaken for a 60 year old today… is just because my stupid right eye won't open?"

Mira didn't say anything to him, only continuing to give him that same awkward and apologetic smile that she'd tried to give him that morning when the subject of his age had been brought up earlier. With a loud groan, Ragna slumped and face planted into the bartop (only narrowly missing his pie).

" _What the hell is it with this damn world?"_

At his word's Mira could only give him a just as nervous laugh as a final blow was struck to the Reaper's ego for the day. Grabbing Ragna's tankard to top off his drink (something she knew he deserved), she made a strong mental note to talk to Makarov about fixing this the next morning.

 _ **Post Chapter Notes**_

 _Happy: You're back from the deeeeeeeeead._

 _Storm: Come on, I wasn't gone that- (Checks date of last post) ...Damn. I have been busy._

 _Happy: Aye! My resurrection spell brought you back from the writer's graveyard!_

 _Storm: You make me sound like I'm some sort of zombie._

 _Happy: With all of those dark circles under your eyes you could have fooled me._

 _Storm: ...Normally I'd take offense to that, but you've got me there._

 _Happy: So we're doing the review responses here?_

 _Storm: I'd like to… but I don't really think I can handle the sheer volume of the reviews I'd have to answer. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE hearing from people about my stories, but with the survey it's just not feasible… that being said, thank you from the bottom of my heart._

 _Happy: Eh?_

 _Storm: Listen, I'm not a stranger to a little criticism on my stories here or there, but I'd heard plenty of negative things on the last chapter I'd posted. What I'd hoped would be a fun little conclusion. turned out to be a polarizing mess. I felt kind of at a loss, not even sure that I wanted to continue this story, just leave it to fade away in update hell._

 _Happy: ...So you put that survey out?_

 _Storm: To a pleasant surprise of A HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN responses, I'm now able to have confidence moving forward with a plan that I think will both satisfy a majority of the readers and follow the narrative that I was building in the first place. Again, I gotta say thank you._

 _Happy: So you're in a pretty good mood then?_

 _Storm: Pretty content yeah, as long as this chapter and the idea moving forward does well I don't think there's anything I can complain about. Until next time everyone._

 _Storm and Happy: Ciao!_


End file.
